THE     HARTFORD-LAMSON     LECTURES 
ON  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  THE  WORLD 

VOLUME  I 

AN   INTRODUCTION   TO   THE   STUDY 
OF   COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE   HARTFORD-LAMSON   LECTURES   ON 
THE   RELIGIONS   OF   THE   WORLD 


AN  INTRODUCTION 


TO   THE   STUDY   OF 


COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 


BY 


FRANK   BYRON   JEVONS 

PRINCIPAL  OF  BISHOP   HATFIELD'S    HALL,   DURHAM 
UNIVERSITY,  DURHAM,  ENGLAND 


Nefo  fgorfc 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1908 

All  rights  reserved 


3 


in 

COPYRIGHT,  1908, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  October,  1908. 


3.  S.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


NOTE 

THE  Hartford-Lamson  Lectures  on  "The  Re- 
ligions of  the  World"  are  delivered  at  Hartford 
Theological  Seminary  in  connection  with  the  Lam- 
son  Fund,  which  was  established  by  a  group  of 
friends  in  honor  of  the  late  Charles  M.  Lamson, 
D.D.,  sometime  President  of  the  American  Board 
of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions,  to  assist 
in  preparing  students  for  the  foreign  missionary 
field.  The  Lectures  are  designed  primarily  to 
give  to  such  students  a  good  knowledge  of  the 
religious  history,  beliefs,  and  customs  of  the  peo- 
ples among  whom  they  expect  to  labor.  As  they 
are  delivered  by  scholars  of  the  first  rank,  who  are 
authorities  in  their  respective  fields,  it  is  expected 
that  in  published  form  they  will  prove  to  be  of 
value  to  students  generally. 


176342 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION      .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  i 

IMMORTALITY 34 

MAGIC 70 

FETICHISM 105 

PRAYER 138 

SACRIFICE 175 

MORALITY 211 

CHRISTIANITY 239 

APPENDIX 267 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 271 

INDEX 275 


vii 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF 
CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

The  use  of  any  science  lies  in  its  application  to  practical  pur- 
poses. For  Christianity,  the  use  of  the  science  of  religion 
consists  in  applying  it  to  show  that  Christianity  is  the 
highest  manifestation  of  the  religious  spirit.  To  make 
this  use  of  the  science  of  religion,  we  must  fully  and 
frankly  accept  the  facts  it  furnishes,  and  must  recognise 
that  others  are  at  liberty  to  use  them  for  any  opposite  pur- 
pose. But  we  must  also  insist  that  the  science  of  religion 
is  limited  to  the  establishment  of  facts  and  is  excluded  j 
from  passing  judgment  on  the  religious  value  of  those 
facts.  The  science  of  religion  as  a  historical  science  is  con- 
cerned with  the  chronological  order,  and  not  with  the  reli- 
gious value,  of  its  facts ;  and  the  order  of  those  facts  does 
not  determine  their  value  any  more  in  the  case  of  religion 
than  in  the  case  of  literature  or  art.  But  if  their  value  is  a 
question  on  which  the  science  refuses  to  enter,  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  question  is  one  which  does  not  admit  of  a 
truthful  answer:  science  has  no  monopoly  of  truth.  The 
value  of  anything  always  implies  a  reference  to  the  future: 
to  be  of  value  a  thing  must  be  of  use  for  some  purpose, 
and  what  is  purposed  is  in  the  future.  Things  have 
value,  or  have  not,  according  as  they  are  useful  or  not 
for  our  purposes.  The  conviction  that  we  can  attain  our 
purposes  and  ideals,  the  conviction  without  which  we 
should  not  even  attempt  to  attain  them  is  faith;  and  it 
is  in  faith  and  by  faith  that  the  man  of  religion  proposes  to 

ix 


X  ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGES 

conquer  the  world.  It  is  by  faith  in  Christianity  that  the 
missionary  undertakes  to  convert  men  to  Christianity. 
The  comparative  value  of  different  religions  can  only  be 
ascertained  by  comparison  of  those  religions;  and  the 
missionary,  of  all  men,  ought  to  know  what  is  to  be 
learnt  from  such  comparison.  It  is  sometimes  supposed 
(wrongly)  that  to  admit  that  all  religions  are  comparable 
is  to  admit  that  all  are  identical ;  but,  in  truth,  it  is  only 
because  they  differ  that  it  is  possible  to  compare  them. 
For  the  purpose  of  comparison  both  the  differences  and 
the  resemblances  must  be  assumed  to  exist;  and  even 
for  the  purposes  of  the  science  of  religion  there  is  noth- 
ing to  compel  us  to  postulate  a  period  in  which  either 
the  differences  or  the  resemblances  were  non-existent. 
But  though  there  is  nothing  to  compel  us  to  assume  that 
the  lowest  form  in  which  religion  is  found  was  neces- 
sarily the  earliest  to  exist,  it  is  convenient  for  us  to  start 
from  the  lowest  forms.  For  the  practical  purposes  of 
the  missionary  it  is  desirable  where  possible  to  discover 
any  points  of  resemblance  or  traits  of  connection  between 
the  lower  form  with  which  his  hearers  are  familiar  and 
the  higher  form  to  which  he  proposes  to  lead  them.  It 
f  is  therefore  proper  for  him  and  reasonable  in  itself  to 
look  upon  the  long  history  of  religion  as  man's  search 
/  for  God,  and  to  regard  it  as  the  function  of  the  mis- 
!  sionary  to  keep  others  in  that  search 1-33 

IMMORTALITY 

The  belief  in  immortality  is  more  prominent,  though  less 
intimately  bound  up  with  religion,  amongst  uncivilised 
than  it  is  amongst  civilised  peoples.  In  early  times 
the  fancy  luxuriates,  unchecked,  on  this  as  on  other 
matters.  It  is  late  in  the  history  of  religion  that  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  is  found  to  be  postulated  alike 
by  morality  and  religion.  The  belief  that  the  soul 
exists  after  death  doubtless  manifested  itself  first  in  the 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS       XI 

fact  that  men  dream  of  those  who  have  died.  But,  were 
there  no  desire  to  believe,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  belief  would  survive,  or  even  originate.  The  belief 
originates  in  desire,  in  longing  for  one  loved  and  lost; 
and  dreams  are  not  the  cause  of  that  desire,  though  they 
are  one  region  in  which  it  manifests  itself,  or  rather  one 
mode  of  its  manifestation.  The  desire  is  for  continued 
communion;  and  its  gratification  is  found  in  a  spiritual 
communion.  Such  communion  also  is  believed  to  unite 
worshippers  both  with  one  another  and  with  their  God. 
Where  death  is  regarded  as  a  disruption  of  communion 
between  the  living  and  the  departed,  death  is  regarded 
as  unnatural,  as  a  violation  of  the  original  design  of 
things,  which  calls  for  explanation;  and  the  explanation 
is  provided  in  myths  which  account  for  it  by  showing  that 
the  origin  of  death  was  due  to  accident  or  mistake.  At 
first,  it  is  felt  that  the  mistake  cannot  be  one  without 
remedy:  the  deceased  is  invited  "to  come  to  us  again." 
If  he  does  not  return  in  his  old  body,  then  he  is  believed 
to  reappear  in  some  new-born  child.  Or  the  doctrine  of 
rebirth  may  be  satisfied  by  the  belief  that  the  soul  is 
reincarnated  in  animal  form.  This  belief  is  specially 
likely  to  grow  up  where  totem  ancestors  are  believed  to 
manifest  themselves  in  the  shape  of  some  animal.  Belief 
in  such  animal  reincarnation  has,  in  its  origin,  how- 
ever, no  connection  with  any  theory  that  transmigration 
from  a  human  to  an  animal  form  is  a  punishment.  Up 
to  this  point  in  the  evolution  of  the  belief  in  immortality, 
the  belief  in  another  world  than  this  does  not  show 
itself.  Even  when  ancestor-worship  begins  to  grow  up, 
the  ancestors'  field  of  operations  is  in  this  world,  rather 
than  in  the  next.  But  the  fact  that  their  aid  and  pro- 
tection can  be  invoked  by  the  community  tends  to  elevate 
them  to  the  level  of  the  god  or  gods  of  the  community. 
This  tendency,  however,  may  be  defeated,  as  it  was  in 
Judaea,  where  the  religious  sentiment  will  not  permit 
the  difference  between  God  and  man  to  be  blurred. 


xil  ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGES 

Where  the  fact  that  the  dead  do  not  return  establishes 
itself  as  incontrovertible,  the  belief  grows  up  that  as  the 
dead  continue  to  exist,  it  is  in  another  world  that  their 
existence  must  continue.  At  first  they  are  conceived 
to  continue  to  be  as  they  are  remembered  to  have  been 
in  this  life.  Later  the  idea  grows  up  that  they  are  pun- 
ished or  rewarded  there,  according  as  they  have  been 
bad  or  good  here;  according  as  they  have  or  have  not  in 
this  life  sought  communion  with  the  true  God.  This 
belief  thus  differs  entirely  from  the  earlier  belief,  e.g.  as 
it  is  found  amongst  the  Eskimo,  that  it  is  in  this  world 
the  spirits  of  the  departed  reappear,  and  that  their,  con- 
tinued existence  is  unaffected  by  considerations  of  moral- 
ity or  religion.  It  is,  however,  not  merely  the  belief  in 
the  next  world  that  may  come  to  be  sanctified  by  religion 
and  moralised.  The  belief  in  reincarnation  in  animal 
form  may  come  to  be  employed  in  the  service  of  religion 
and  morality,  as  it  is  in  Buddhism.  There,  however, 
what  was  originally  the  transmigration  of  souls  was  trans- 
formed by  Gotama  into  the  transmigration  of  character; 
and  the  very  existence  of  the  individual  soul,  whether 
before  death  or  after,  was  held  to  be  an  illusion  and  a 
deception.  This  tenet  pushes  the  doctrine  of  self- 
sacrifice,  which  is  essential  both  to  religion  and  to 
morality,  to  an  extreme  which  is  fatal  in  logic  to  morality 
and  religion  alike:  communion  between  man  and  God  — 
the  indispensable  presupposition  of  both  religion  and 
morals  —  is  impossible,  if  the  very  existence  of  man  is 
illusory.  The  message  of  the  missionary  will  be  that  by 
Christianity  self-sacrifice  is  shown  to  be  the  condition  of 
morality,  the  essence  of  communion  with  God  and  the 
way  to  life  eternal 34-69 

MAGIC 

A  view  sometime  held  was  that  magic  is  religion,  and  religion 
magic.  With  equal  reason,  or  want  of  reason,  it  might 
be  held  that  magic  was  science,  and  science  magic. 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS  Xlll 


Even  if  we  correct  the  definition,  and  say  that  to  us 
magic  appears,  in  one  aspect,  as  a  spurious  system  of 
science;  and,  in  another,  as  a  spurious  system  of  re- 
ligion; we  still  have  to  note  that,  for  those  who  believed 
in  it,  it  could  not  have  been  a  spurious  system,  whether 
of  science  or  religion.  Primitive  man  acts  on  the  assump- 
tion that  he  can  produce  like  by  means  of  like;  and  about 
that  assumption  there  is  no  "magic"  of  any  kind.  It  is 
only  when  an  effect  thus  produced  is  a  thing  not  com- 
monly done  and  not  generally  approved  of,  that  it  is 
regarded  as  magic;  and  it  is  magic,  because  not  every 
one  knows  how  to  do  it,  or  not  every  one  has  the  power 
to  do  it,  or  not  every  one  cares  to  do  it.  About  this 
belief,  so  long  as  every  one  entertains  it,  there  is  nothing 
spurious.  When  however  it  begins  to  be  suspected  that 
the  magician  has  not  the  power  to  do  what  he  professes, 
his  profession  tends  to  become  fraudulent  and  his  belief 
spurious.  On  the  other  hand,  a  thing  commonly  done 
and  generally  approved  of  is  not  regarded  as  magical 
merely  because  the  effect  resembles  the  cause,  and  like  is 
in  this  instance  produced  by  like.  Magic  is  a  term  of  evil 
connotation ;  and  the  practice  of  using  like  to  produce  like 
is  condemned  when  and  because  it  is  employed  for  anti- 
social purposes.  Such  practices  are  resented  by  the 
society,  amongst  whom  and  on  whom  they  are  em- 
ployed; and  they  are  offensive  to  the  God  who  looks 
after  the  interests  of  the  community.  In  fine,  the  object 
and  purpose  of  the  practice  determines  the  attitude  of  the 
community  towards  the  practice:  if  the  object  is  anti- 
social, the  practice  is  nefarious ;  and  the  witch,  if  "  smelled 
out,"  is  killed.  The  person  who  is  willing  to  undertake 
such  nefarious  proceedings  comes  to  be  credited  with  a 
nefarious  personality,  that  is  to  say,  with  both  the  power 
and  the  will  to  do  what  ordinary,  decent  members  of 
the  community  could  not  and  would  not  do:  personal 
power  comes  to  be  the  most  important,  because  the 
most  mysterious,  characteristic  of  the  man  believed  to 


XIV  ANALYTICAL    TABLE   OF    CONTENTS 

PAGES 

be  a  magician.  If  we  turn  to  things,  such  as  rain-making, 
which  are  socially  beneficial,  we  find  a  similar  growth  in 
the  belief  that  some  men  have  extraordinary  power  to 
work  wonders  on  behalf  of  the  tribe.  A  further  stage  of 
development  is  reached  when  the  man  who  uses  his  per- 
sonal power  for  nefarious  purposes  undertakes  by  means 
of  it  to  control  spirits :  magic  then  tends  to  pass  into  fetich- 
ism.  Similarly,  when  rain  and  other  social  benefits  come 
to  be  regarded  as  gifts  of  the  gods,  the  power  of  the  rain- 
maker comes  to  be  regarded  as  a  power  to  procure  from 
the  gods  the  gifts  that  they  have  to  bestow:  magic  is  dis- 
placed by  religion.  The  opposition  of  principle  between 
magic  and  religion  thus  makes  itself  manifest.  It  makes 
itself  manifest  in  that  the  one  promotes  social  and  the 
other  anti-social  purposes:  the  spirit  worshipped  by  any 
community  as  its  god  is  a  spirit  who  has  the  interests  of 
the  community  at  heart,  and  who  ex  officio  condemns 
and  punishes  those  who  by  magic  or  otherwise  work 
injury  to  the  members  of  the  community.  Finally,  the 
decline  of  the  belief  in  magic  is  largely  due  to  the  dis- 
covery that  it  does  not  produce  the  effects  it  professes  to 
bring  about.  But  the  missionary  will  also  dwell  on  the 
fact  that  his  hearers  feel  it  to  be  anti-social  and  to  be  con- 
demned alike  by  their  moral  sentiments  and  their  re- 
ligious feeling 70-104 

FETICHISM 

Fetichism  is  regarded  by  some  as  a  stage  of  religious  develop- 
ment, or  as  the  form  of  religion  found  amongst  men  at 
the  lowest  stage  of  development  known  to  us.  From  this 
the  conclusion  is  sometimes  drawn  that  fetichism  is  the 
source  of  all  religion  and  of  all  religious  values;  and, 
therefore,  that  (as  fetichism  has  no  value)  religion  (which 
is  an  evolved  form  of  fetichism)  has  no  value  either. 
This  conclusion  is  then  believed  to  be  proved  by  the 
science  of  religion.  In  fact,  however,  students  of  the 
science  of  religion  disclaim  this  conclusion  and  rightly 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS       XV 

assert  that  the  science  does  not  undertake  to  prove  any- 
thing as  to  the  truth  or  the  value  of  religion. 

Much  confusion  prevails  as  to  what  fetichism  is;  and  the 
confusion  is  primarily  due  to  Bosman.  He  confuses, 
while  the  science  of  religion  distinguishes  between,  animal 
gods  and  fetiches.  He  asserts  what  we  now  know  to  be 
false,  viz.,  that  a  fetich  is  an  inanimate  object  and  nothing 
more;  and  that  the  native  rejects,  or  "breaks,"  one  of 
these  gods,  knowing  it  to  be  a  god. 

Any  small  object  which  happens  to  arrest  the  attention  of  a 
negro,  when  he  has  a  desire  to  gratify,  may  impress  him 
as  being  a  fetich,  i.e.  as  having  power  to  help  him  to 
gratify  his  desire.  Here,  Hoffding  says,  is  the  simplest 
conceivable  construction  of  religious  ideas:  here  is 
presented  religion  under  the  guise  of  desire.  Let  it  be 
granted,  then,  that  the  object  attracts  attention  and  is 
involuntarily  associated  with  the  possibility  of  attaining 
the  desired  end.  It  follows  that,  as  in  the  period  of  ani- 
mism, all  objects  are  believed  to  be  animated  by  spirits, 
fetich  objects  are  distinguished  from  other  objects  by 
the  fact  —  not  that  they  are  animated  by  spirits  but  — 
that  it  is  believed  they  will  aid  in  the  accomplishment  of 
the  desired  end.  The  picking  up  of  a  fetich  object,  how- 
ever, is  not  always  followed  by  the  desired  result;  and 
the  negro  then  explains  "that  it  has  lost  its  spirit." 
The  spirit  goes  out  of  it,  indeed,  but  may  perchance  be 
induced  or  even  compelled  to  return  into  some  other 
object;  and  then  fetiches  may  be  purposely  made  as 
well  as  accidentally  found,  and  are  liable  to  coercion  as 
well  as  open  to  conciliation. 

But,  throughout  this  process,  there  is  no  religion.     Religion  f 
is  the  worship  of  the  gods  of  a  community  by  the  com-  I 
munity  for  the  good  of  the  community.     The  cult  of  a 
fetich  is  conducted  by  an  individual  for  his  private  ends; 
and  the  most  important  function  of  a  fetich  is  to  work 
evil  against  those  members  of  the  community  who  have 
incurred  the  fetich  owner's  resentment.     Thus  religion 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGES 

and  fetich-worship  are  directed  to  ends  not  merely 
different  but  antagonistic.  From  the  very  outset  re- 
ligion in  social  fetichism  is  anti-social.  To  seek  the 
origin  of  religion  in  fetichism  is  vain.  Condemned, 
wherever  it  exists,  by  the  religious  and  moral  feelings 
of  the  community,  fetichism  cannot  have  been  the 
primitive  religion  of  mankind.  The  spirits  of  fetich- 
ism, according  to  Hoffding,  become  eventually  the  gods 
of  polytheism:  such  a  spirit,  so  long  as  it  is  a  fetich, 
is  "the  god  of  a  moment,"  and  must  come  to  be  per- 
manent if  it  is  to  attain  to  the  ranks  of  the  polytheistic 
gods.  But  fetiches,  even  when  their  function  becomes 
permanent,  remain  fetiches  and  do  not  become  gods. 
They  do  not  even  become  "departmental  gods,"  for 
their  powers  are  to  further  a  man's  desires  generally. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  have  personality,  even  if  they 
have  not  personal  names.  Finally,  if,  as  Hoffding  be- 
lieves, the  word  "god"  originally  meant  "he  who  is 
worshipped,"  and  gods  are  worshipped  by  the  commu- 
nity, then  fetiches,  as  they  are  nowhere  worshipped  by 
the  community,  are  in  no  case  gods. 

The  function  of  the  fetich  is  anti-social ;  of  the  gods,  to  pro- 
mote the  well-being  of  the  community.  To  maintain  that 
a  god  is  evolved  out  of  a  fetich  is  to  maintain  that  prac- 
tices destructive  of  society  have  only  to  be  pushed  far 
enough  and  they  will  prove  the  salvation  of  society  .  105-137 

PRAYER 

Prayer  is  a  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  religion  to  which 
the  science  of  religion  has  devoted  but  little  attention  — 
the  reason  alleged  being  that  it  is  so  simple  and  familiar 
as  not  to  demand  detailed  study.  It  may,  however,  be 
that  the  phenomenon  is  indeed  familiar  yet  not  simple. 
Simple  or  not,  it  is  a  matter  on  which  different  views 
may  be  held.  Thus  though  it  may  be  agreed  that  in 
the  lower  forms  of  religion  it  is  the  accomplishment  of 
desire  that  is  asked  for,  a  divergence  of  opinion  emerges 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS  Xvii 

the  moment  the  question  is  put,  Whose  desire?  that  of 
the  individual  or  of  the  community  ?  And  instances  may 
be  cited  to  show  that  it  is  not  for  his  own  personal, 
selfish  advantage  alone  that  the  savage  always  or  even 
usually  prays.  It  is  the  desires  of  the  community  that 
the  god  of  the  community  is  concerned  to  grant:  the 
petition  of  an  individual  is  offered  and  harkened  to  only 
so  far  as  it  is  not  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  the  com- 
munity. The  statement  that  savage  prayer  is  unethical 
may  be  correct  in  the  sense  that  pardon  for  moral  sin  is 
not  sought;  it  is  incorrect,  if  understood  to  mean  that 
the  savage  does  not  pray  to  do  the  things  which  his 
morality  makes  it  incumbent  on  him  to  do,  e.g.  to  fight 
successfully.  The  desires  which  the  god  is  prayed  to 
grant  are  ordinarily  desires  which,  being  felt  by  each 
and  every  member  of  the  community,  are  the  desires  of 
the  community,  as  such,  and  not  of  any  one  member 
exclusively. 

Charms,  it  has  been  suggested,  in  some  cases  are  prayers  that 
by  vain  repetition  have  lost  their  religious  significance 
and  become  mere  spells.  And  similarly  it  has  been  sug- 
gested that  out  of  mere  spells  prayer  may  have  been 
evolved.  But,  on  the  hypothesis  that  a  spell  is  something 
in  which  no  religion  is,  it  is  clear  that  out  of  it  no  re- 
ligion can  come;  while  if  prayer,  i.e.  religion,  has  been 
evolved  out  of  spells,  then  there  have  never  been  spells 
wholly  wanting  in  every  religious  element.  Whether  a 
given  formula  then  is  prayer  or  spell  may  be  difficult 
to  decide,  when  it  has  some  features  which  seem  to  be 
magical  and  others  which  seem  to  be  religious.  The 
magical  element  may  have  been  original  and  be  in 
process  of  disappearing  before  the  dawn  of  the  religious 
spirit.  Now,  the  formula  uttered  is  usually  accom- 
panied by  gestures  performed.  If  the  words  are  uttered 
to  explain  the  gesture  or  rite,  the  explanation  is  offered 
to  some  one,  the  words  are  of  the  nature  of  a  prayer  to 
some  one  to  grant  the  desire  which  the  gesture  manifests. 


xviii  ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

PAGES 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  gestures  are  performed  to 
make  the  words  more  intelligible,  then  the  action  per- 
formed is,  again,  not  magical,  but  is  intended  to  make 
the  words  —  the  prayer  —  more  emphatic.  In  neither 
case,  then,  is  the  gesture  or  rite  magical  in  intent.  Dr. 
Frazer's  suggestion  that  it  required  long  ages  for  man  to 
discover  that  he  could  not  always  succeed  —  even  by  the 
aid  of  magic  —  in  getting  what  he  wanted ;  and  that 
only  when  he  made  this  discovery  did  he  take  to  religion 
and  prayer,  is  a  suggestion  which  cannot  be  maintained 
\  in  view  of  the  fact  that  savage  man  is  much  more  at 
the  mercy  of  accidents  than  is  civilised  man.  The  sug- 
gestion, in  fact,  tells  rather  against  than  in  favour  of 
the  view  that  magic  preceded  religion,  and  that  spells 
^preceded  prayer. 

The  Australian  black  fellows  might  have  been  expected  to 
present  us  with  the  spectacle  of  a  people  unacquainted 
with  prayer.  But  in  point  of  fact  we  find  amongst  them 
both  prayers  to  Byamee  and  formulae  which,  though  now 
unintelligible  even  to  the  natives,  may  originally  have  been 
prayers.  And  generally  speaking  the  presumption  is  that 
races,  who  distinctly  admit  the  existence  of  spirits,  pray 
to  those  spirits,  even  though  their  prayers  be  concealed 
from  the  white  man's  observation.  Gods  are  there  for  the 
purpose  of  being  prayed  to.  Prayer  is  the  essence  of  re- 
I  ligion,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  gods,  when  they  cease 
'  to  be  prayed  to,  are  ignored  rather  than  worshipped. 
Such  gods  —  as  in  Africa  and  elsewhere  —  become  little 
more  than  memories,  when  they  no  longer  have  a  circle 
of  worshippers  to  offer  prayer  and  sacrifice  to  them. 

The  highest  point  reached  in  the  evolution  of  pre-Christian 
prayer  is  when  the  gods,  as  knowing  best  what  is  good, 
are  petitioned  simply  for  things  good.  Our  Lord's  prayer 
is  a  revelation  which  the  theory  of  evolution  cannot 
account  for  or  explain.  Nor  does  Hoff  ding's  "antinomy 
of  religious  feeling"  present  itself  to  the  Christian  soul  as 
an  antinomy 138-174 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS  XIX 


SACRIFICE 

Prayer  and  sacrifice  historically  go  together,  and  logically 
are  indissoluble.  Sacrifice,  whether  realised  in  an  offer- 
ing dedicated  or  in  a  sacrificial  meal,  is  prompted  by  the 
worshippers'  desire  to  feel  that  they  are  at  one  with  the 
spirit  worshipped.  That  desire  manifests  itself  specially 
on  certain  regularly  occurring  occasions  (harvest,  seed 
time,  initiation)  and  also  in  times  of  crisis.  At  harvest 
time  the  sacrifices  or  offerings  are  thank-offerings,  as  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  a  formula  of  thanksgiving  is 
employed.  Primitive  prayer  does  not  consist  solely  in 
petitions  for  favours  to  come;  it  includes  thanksgiving 
for  blessings  received.  Such  thanksgivings  cannot  by 
any  possibility  be  twisted  into  magic. 

Analogous  to  these  thanksgivings  at  harvest  time  is  the  sol- 
emn eating  of  first-fruits  amongst  the  Australian  black 
fellows.  If  this  solemn  eating  is  not  in  Australia  a 
survival  of  a  sacramental  meal,  in  which  the  god  and  his 
worshippers  were  partakers,  it  must  be  merely  a  ceremony 
whereby  the  food,  which  until  it  is  eaten  is  taboo,  is 
"desacralised."  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  such  food  is  not 
taboo  to  the  tribe  generally;  and  the  object  of  the  solemn 
eating  cannot  be  to  remove  the  taboo  and  desacralise  the 
food  for  the  tribe. 

If  the  harvest  rites  or  first-fruit  ceremonials  are  sacrificial  in 
nature,  then  the  presumption  is  that  so,  too,  are  the  cere- 
monies performed  at  seed  time  or  the  analogous  period. 

At  initiation  ceremonies  or  mysteries,  even  amongst  the 
Australian  black  fellows,  there  is  evidence  to  show  that 
prayer  is  offered;  and  generally  speaking  we  may  say 
that  the  boy  initiated  is  admitted  to  the  worship  of  the 
tribal  gods. 

The  spring  and  harvest  customs  are  closely  allied  to  one 
another  and  may  be  arranged  in  four  groups:  (i)  In  Mex- 
ico they  plainly  consist  of  the  worship  of  a  god  —  by 
means  of  sacrifice  and  prayer  —  and  of  communion. 


XX      ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

(2)  In  some  other  cases,  though  the  god  has  no  proper  or 
personal  name,  and  no  image  is  made  of  him,  "the  new 
corn,"  Dr.  Frazer  says,  "is  itself  eaten  sacramentally, 
that  is,  as  the  body  of  the  corn  spirit";  and  it  is  by  this 
sacramental  meal  that  communion  is  effected  or  main- 
tained. (3)  In  the  harvest  customs  of  northern  Europe, 
bread  and  dumplings  are  made  and  eaten  sacramentally, 
"as  a  substitute  for  the  real  flesh  of  the  divine  being"; 
or  an  animal  is  slain  and  its  flesh  and  blood  are  partaken 
of.  (4)  Amongst  the  Australian  tribes  there  is  a  sacra- 
mental eating  of  the  totem  animal  or  plant.  Now,  these 
four  groups  of  customs  may  be  all  religious  (and  Dr. 
Frazer  speaks  of  them  all  as  sacramental)  or  all  magical ; 
or  it  may  be  admitted  that  the  first  three  are  religious,  and 
maintained  that  the  fourth  is  strictly  magical.  But  such 
a  separation  of  the  Australian  group  from  the  rest  does 
not  commend  itself  as  likely;  further,  it  overlooks  the 
fact  that  it  is  at  the  period  analogous  to  harvest 
time  that  the  headman  eats  solemnly  and  sparingly  of 
the  plant  or  animal,  and  that  at  harvest  time  it  is  too  late 
to  work  magic  to  cause  the  plant  or  animal  to  grow. 
The  probability  is,  then^that  both  the  Australian  group 
and  the  others  are  sacrificial  rites  and  are  religious. 
j  Such  sacrificial  rites,  however,  though  felt  to  be  the  means 
whereby  communion  was  effected  and  maintained  be- 
tween the  god  and  his  worshippers,  may  come  to  be 
interpreted  as  the  making  of  gifts  to  the  god,  as  the 
means  of  purchasing  his  favour,  or  as  a  full  discharge 
of  their  obligations.  When  so  interpreted  they  will  be 
denounced  by  true  religion.  But  though  it  be  admitted 
that  the  sacrificial  rite  might  be  made  to  bear  this  aspect, 
it  does  not  follow,  as  is  sometimes  supposed,  that  it  was 
from  the  outset  incapable  of  bearing  any  other.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was,  from  the  beginning,  not  only  the  rite 
of  making  offerings  to  the  god  but,  also,  the  rite  whereby 
communion  was  attained,  whereby  the  society  of  wor- 
shippers was  brought  into  the  presence  of  the  god  they 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS  XXI 

PAGES 

worshipped,  even  though  the  chief  benefits  which  the 
worshippers  conceived  themselves  to  receive  were  earthly 
blessings.  It  is  because  the  rite  had  from  the  beginning 
this  potentiality  in  it  that  it  was  possible  for  it  to  become 
the  means  whereby,  through  Christ,  all  men  might  be 
brought  to  God 175-210 

MORALITY 

The  question  whether  morality  is  based  on  religion,  or  re- 
ligion on  morality,  is  one  which  calls  for  discussion, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  apt  to  proceed  on  a  mistaken  view 
of  facts  in  the  history  of  religion.  It  is  maintained 
that  as  a  matter  of  history  morality  came  first  and  re- 
ligion afterwards;  and  that  as  a  matter  of  philosophy 
religion  presupposes  morality.  Reality,  that  is  to  say,  is 
in  the  making;  the  spirit  of  man  is  self- realising;  being 
is  in  process  of  becoming  rationalised  and  moralised; 
religion  in  process  of  disappearing. 

Early  religion,  it  is  said,  is  unethical :  it  has  to  do  with  spirits, 
which,  as  such,  are  not  concerned  with  morality;  with 
gods  which  are  not  ethical  or  ideal,  and  are  not  objects 
of  worship  in  our  sense  of  the  term. 

Now,  the  spirits  which,  in  the  period  of  animism,  are  believed 
to  animate  things,  are  not,  it  is  true,  concerned  with 
morality;  but  then,  neither  are  they  gods.  To  be  a  god 
a  spirit  must  have  a  community  of  worshippers;  and  it  is 
as  the  protector  of  that  community  that  he  is  worshipped. 
He  protects  the  community  against  any  individual  mem- 
ber who  violates  the  custom  of  the  community.  The 
custom  of  the  community  constitutes  the  morality  of  the 
society.  Offences  against  that  custom  are  offences 
against  the  god  of  the  community.  A  god  starts  as  an  ; 
ethical  power,  and  as  an  object  of  worship. 

Still,  it  may  be  argued,  before  gods  were,  before  religion 
was  evolved,  morality  was;  and  this  may  be  shown  by 
the  origin  and  nature  of  justice,  which  throughout  is 
entirely  independent  of  religion  and  religious  considera- 


XX11  ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

tions.  On  this  theory,  the  origin  of  justice  is  to  be  found 
in  the  resentment  of  the  individual.  But,  first,  the  in- 
dividual, apart  from  society,  is  an  abstraction  and  an 
impossibility:  the  individual  never  exists  apart  from 
but  always  as  a  member  of  some  society.  Next,  justice 
is  not  the  resentment  of  any  individual,  but  the  senti- 
ment of  the  community,  expressing  itself  in  the  action  not 
of  any  individual  but  of  the  community  as  such.  The 
responsibility  both  for  the  wrong  done  and  for  righting  it 
rests  with  the  community.  The  earliest  offences  against 
which  public  action  is  taken  are  said  to  be  witchcraft  and 
breaches  of  the  marriage  laws.  The  latter  are  not  in- 
juries resented  by  any  individual:  they  are  offences 
against  the  gods  and  are  punished  to  avert  the  mis- 
.<  fortunes  which  otherwise  would  visit  the  tribe.  Witch- 

craft is  especially  offensive  to  the  god  of  the  community. 
In  almost,  if  not  quite,  the  lowest  stages  of  human  develop- 
ment, disease  and  famine  are  regarded  as  punishments 
which  fall  on  the  community  as  a  whole,  because  the 
community,  in  the  person  of  one  of  its  members,  has 
offended  some  supernatural  power.  In  quite  the  lowest 
stage  the  guilt  of  the  offending  member  is  also  regarded 
as  capable  of  infecting  the  whole  community;  and  he 
is,  accordingly,  avoided  by  the  whole  community  and 
tabooed.  Taboo  is  due  to  the  collective  action,  and  ex- 
presses the  collective  feeling  of  the  community  as  a 
whole.  It  is  from  such  collective  action  and  feeling  that 
justice  has  been  evolved  and  not  from  individual  resent- 
ment, which  is  still  and  always  was  something  different 
from  justice.  The  offences  punished  by  the  community 
have  always  been  considered,  so  far  as  they  are  offences 
against  morality,  to  be  offences  against  the  gods  of  the 
community.  The  fact  that  in  course  of  time  such  offences 
come  to  be  punished  always  as  militating  against  the 
good  of  society  testifies  merely  to  the  general  assumption 
that  the  good  of  man  is  the  will  of  God:  men  do  not 
believe  that  murder,  adultery,  etc.,  are  merely  offences 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS  XX111 

PAGES 

against  man's  laws.  It  is  only  by  ignoring  this  patent 
fact  that  it  becomes  possible  to  maintain  that  religion 
is  built  upon  morality,  and  that  we  are  discovering 
religion  to  be  a  superfluous  superstructure. 
It  may  be  argued  that  the  assumption  that  murder,  adultery, 
etc.,  are  offences  against  God's  will  is  a  mere  assump- 
tion, and  that  in  making  the  assumption  we  are  fleeing 
"to  the  bosom  of  faith."  The  reply  is  that  we  are 
content  not  merely  to  flee  but  to  rest  there  .  .  211-238 

CHRISTIANITY 

If  we  are  to  understand  the  place  of  Christianity  in  the  evo- 
lution of  religion,  we  must  consider  the  place  of  reli- 
gion in  the  evolution  of  humanity ;  and  I  must  explain 
the  point  of  view  from  which  I  propose  to  approach  the 
three  ideas  of  (i)  evolution,  (2)  the  evolution  of  humanity, 
(3)  the  evolution  of  religion. 

I  wish  to  approach  the  idea  of  evolution  from  the  proposition 
that  the  individual  is  both  a  means  by  which  society  at- 
tains its  end,  and  an  end  for  the  sake  of  which  society 
exists.  Utilitarianism  has  familiarised  us  with  the  view 
that  society  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  individual  and  for 
the  purpose  of  realising  the  happiness  and  good  of 
every  individual:  no  man  is  to  be  treated  merely  as  a 
chattel,  existing  solely  as  a  means  whereby  his  owner,  or 
the  governing  class,  may  benefit.  But  this  aspect  of  the 
facts  is  entirely  ignored  by  the  scientific  theory  of  evo- 
lution: according  to  that  theory,  the  individual  exists 
only  as  a  factor  in  the  process  of  evolution,  as  one  of  the 
means  by  which,  and  not  as  in  any  sense  the  end  for 
which,  the  process  is  carried  on. 

Next,  this  aspect  of  the  facts  is  ignored  not  only  by  the 
scientific  theory  of  evolution,  but  also  by  the  theory  which 
humanitarianism  holds  as  to  the  evolution  of  humanity, 
viz.  that  it  is  a  process  moving  through  the  three  stages 
of  custom,  religion,  and  humanitarianism.  That  process 
is  still,  as  it  has  long  been  in  the  past,  far  from  complete: 


XXIV     ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

the  end  is  not  yet.  It  is  an  end  in  which,  whenever  and 
if  ever  realised  on  earth,  we  who  are  now  living  shall  not 
live  to  partake:  we  are  —  on  this  theory  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  humanity  —  means,  and  solely  means,  to  an  end 
which,  when  realised,  we  shall  not  partake  in.  Being  an 
end  in  which  we  cannot  participate,  it  is  not  an  end 
which  can  be  rationally  set  up  for  us  to  strive  to  attain. 
Nor  will  the  generation,  which  is  ultimately  to  enjoy  it, 
find  much  satisfaction  in  reflecting  that  their  enjoyment 
has  been  purchased  at  the  cost  of  others.  To  treat  a 
minority  of  individuals  as  the  end  for  which  humanity 
is  evolved,  and  the  majority  as  merely  means,  is  a 
strange  pass  for  humanitarianism  to  come  to. 

Approaching  the  evolution  of  religion  from  the  point  of  view 
that  the  individual  must  always  be  regarded  both  as  an 
end  and  as  a  means,  we  find  that  Buddhism  denies  the 
individual  to  be  either  the  one  or  the  other,  for  his  very 
existence  is  an  illusion,  and  an  illusion  which  must  be 
dispelled,  in  order  that  he  may  cease  from  an  existence 
which  it  is  an  illusion  to  imagine  that  he  possesses.  If, 
however,  we  turn  to  other  religions  less  highly  developed 
than  Buddhism,  we  find  that,  in  all,  the  existence  of  the 
individual  as  well  as  of  the  god  of  the  community  is 
assumed;  that  the  interests  of  the  community  are  the 
will  of  the  community's  god;  that  the  interests  of  the 
community  are  higher  than  the  interests  of  the  individual, 
when  they  appear  to  differ;  and  that  the  man  who  prefers 
the  interests  of  the  community  to  his  own  is  regarded' as 
the  higher  type  of  man.  In  fine,  the  individual,  from 
this  point  of  view,  acts  voluntarily  as  the  means  whereby 
the  end  of  society  may  be  realised.  And,  in  so  acting,  he 
testifies  to  his  conviction  that  he  will  thereby  realise  his 
own  end. 

Throughout  the  history  of  religion  these  two  facts  are  im- 
plied: first,  the  existence  of  the  individual  as  a  member 
of  society  seeking  communion  with  God;  next,  the  ex- 
istence of  society  as  a  means  of  which  the  individual  is 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE    OF   CONTENTS  XXV 

PAGES 

the  end.     Hence  two  consequences  with  regard  to  evolu- 
tion: first,  evolution  may  have  helped  to  make  us,  but  we 
are  helping  to  make  it ;  next,  the  end  of  evolution  is  not 
wholly  outside  any  one  of   us,   but    in  part   is   realised 
in  us.     And   it   is  just  because  the  end  is  both  within  / 
us  and  without  us  that  we  are  bound  up  with  our  fellow-  / 
man  and  God. 

Whether  the  process  of  evolution  is  moving  to  any  end  what- 
ever, is  a  question  which  science  declines  —  formally  re- 
fuses —  to  consider.  Whether  the  end  at  which  religion 
aims  is  possible  or  not,  has  in  any  degree  been  achieved 
or  not,  is  a  question  which  the  science  of  religion  formally 
declines  to  consider.  If,  however,  we  recognise  that  the 
end  of  religion,  viz.  communion  with  God,  is  an  end  at 
which  we  ought  to  aim,  then  the  process  whereby  the  end 
tends  to  be  attained  is  no  longer  evolution  in  the  scien- 
tific sense.  It  is  a  process  in  which  progress  may  or  may 
not  be  made.  As  a  fact,  the  missionary  everywhere  sees 
arrested  development,  imperfect  communion  with  God; 
for  the  different  forms  of  religion  realise  the  end  of 
religion  in  different  degrees.  Christianity  claims  to  be 
"final,"  not  in  the  chronological  sense,  but  in  that  it 
alone  finds  the  true  basis  and  the  only  end  of  society  in 
the  love  of  God.  The  Christian  theory  of  society  again 
differs  from  all  other  theories  in  that  it  not  only  regards 
the  individuals  composing  it  as  continuing  to  exist  after 
death,  but  teaches  that  the  society  of  which  the  individual 
is  truly  a  member,  though  it  manifests  itself  in  this  world, 
is  realised  in  the  next. 

The  history  of  religion  is  the  history  of  man's  search  for  God. 
That  search  depends  for  its  success,  in  part,  upon  man's  • 
will.  Christianity  cannot  be  stationary:  the  extent  to 
which  we  push  our  missionary  outposts  forward  gives 
us  the  measure  of  our  vitality.  And  in  that  respect,  as 
in  others,  the  vitality  of  the  United  States  is  great.  239-265 

APPENDIX 266  ad  Jin. 


INTRODUCTION 

OF  the  many  things  that  fill  a  visitor  from  the 
old  country  with  admiration,  on  his  first  visit  to 
the  United  States,  that  which  arrests  his  attention 
most  frequently,  is  the  extent  and  success  with 
which  science  is  applied  to  practical  purposes.  And 
it  is  beginning  to  dawn  upon  me  that  in  the 
United  States  it  is  not  only  pure  science  which  is 
thus  practically  applied,  —  the  pure  sciences  of 
mechanics,  physics,  mathematics,  —  but  that  the 
historic  sciences  also  are  expected  to  justify  them- 
selves by  their  practical  application;  and  that 
amongst  the  historic  sciences  not  even  the  science 
of  religion  is  exempted  from  the  common  lot. 
It  also  may  be  useful ;  and  had  better  be  so,  — 
if  any  one  is  to  have  any  use  for  it.  It  must  make 
itself  useful  to  the  man  who  has  practical  need  of 
its  results  and  wishes  to  apply  them  —  the  mis- 
sionary. He  it  is  who,  for  the  practical  purposes 
of  the  work  to  which  he  is  called,  requires  an 
applied  science  of  religion;  and  Hartford  Theo- 


2  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

logical  Seminary  may,  I  believe,  justly  claim  to 
be  the  first  institution  in  the  world  which  has 
deliberately  and  consciously  set  to  work  to  create 
by  the  courses  of  lectures,  of  which  this  series  is 
the  very  humble  beginning,  an  applied  science  of 
religion. 

How,  then,  will  the  applied  science  differ  from 
the  pure  science  of  religion?  In  one  way  it  will 
not  differ:  an  applied  science  does  not  sit  in  judg- 
ment upon  the  pure  science  on  which  it  is  based ; 
it  accepts  the  truths  which  the  pure  science  pre- 
sents to  all  the  world,  and  bases  itself  upon  them. 
The  business  of  pure  science  is  to  discover  facts; 
that  of  the  applied  science  is  to  use  them.  The 
business  of  the  science  of  religion  is  to  discover 
all  the  facts  necessary  if  we  are  to  understand  the 
growth  and  history  of  religion.  The  business  of 
the  applied  science  is,  in  our  case,  to  use  the  dis- 
covered facts  as  a  means  of  showing  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  highest  manifestation  of  the  religious 
spirit. 

In  dealing  with  the  applied  science,  then,  we 
recover  a  liberty  which  the  pure  science  does  not 
enjoy.  The  science  of  religion  is  a  historic 
science.  Its  student  looks  back  upon  the  past; 


INTRODUCTION  3 

and  looks  back  upon  it  with  a  single  purpose,  that 
of  discovering  what,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  did  happen, 
what  was  the  order  in  which  the  events  occurred. 
In  so  looking  back  he  may,  and  does,  see  many 
things  which  he  could  wish  had  not  occurred ;  but 
he  has  no  power  to  alter  them;  he  has  no  choice 
but  to  record  them;  and  his  duty,  his  single  duty, 
is  to  ascertain  the  historic  facts  and  to  establish 
the  historic  truth.  With  the  applied  science  the 
case  is  very  different.  There  the  student  sets  his 
face  to  the  future,  no  longer  to  the  past.  The 
truths  of  pure  science  are  the  weapons  placed  in 
his  hand  with  which  he  is  to  conquer  the  world. 
It  is  in  the  faith  that  the  armour  provided  him  by 
science  is  sure  and  will  not  fail  him  that  he  addresses 
himself  to  his  chosen  work.  The  implements  are 
set  in  his  hands.  The  liberty  is  his  to  employ 
them  for  what  end  he  will.  That  liberty  is  a  con- 
sequence of  the  fact  that  the  student's  object  no 
longer  is  to  ascertain  the  past,  but  to  make  the 
future. 

The  business  of  the  pure  science  is  to  ascertain 
the  facts  and  state  the  truth.  To  what  use  the 
facts  and  truth  are  afterwards  put,  is  a  question 
with  which  the  pure  science  has  nothing  to  do. 


4  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

The  same  facts  may  be  put  to  very  different  uses : 
from  the  same  facts  very  different  conclusions  may 
be  drawn.  The  facts  which  the  science  of  reli- 
gion establishes  may  be  used  and  are  used  for 
different  and  for  contradictory  purposes.  The  man 
who  is  agnostic  or  atheist  uses  them  to  support  his 
atheism  or  agnosticism;  or  even,  if  he  is  so  un- 
wise, to  prove  it.  The  man  who  has  religion  is 
equally  at  liberty  to  use  them  in  his  support;  and 
if  he  rarely  does  that,  at  any  rate  he  still  more  rarely 
commits  the  mistake  of  imagining  that  the  science 
of  religion  proves  the  truth  of  his  particular  views 
on  the  subject  of  religion.  Indeed,  his  tendency  is 
rather  in  the  opposite  direction:  he  is  unreasonably 
uneasy  and  apt  to  have  a  disquieting  alarm  lest 
the  science  of  religion  may  really  be  a  danger  to 
religion.  This  alarm  may  very  naturally  arise 
when  he  discovers  that  to  the  scientific  student  one 
religion  is  as  another,  and  the  question  is  indiffer- 
ent whether  there  is  any  truth  in  any  form.  It  is 
very  easy  to  jump  from  these  facts  to  the  erroneous 
conclusion  that  science  of  religion  is  wholly  in- 
compatible with  religious  belief.  And  of  course  it 
is  quite  human  and  perfectly  intelligible  that  that 
conclusion  should  be  proclaimed  aloud  as  correct 


INTRODUCTION  5 

and  inevitable  by  the  man  who,  being  an  atheist, 
fights  for  what  he  feels  to  be  the  truth. 

We  must,  therefore,  once  more  insist  upon  the 
simple  fact  that  science  of  religion  abstains  neces- 
sarily from  assuming  either  that  religion  is  true  or 
is  not  true.  What  it  does  assume  is  what  no  one 
will  deny,  viz.  that  religion  is  a  fact.  Religious 
beliefs  may  be  right  or  they  may  be  wrong:  but 
they  exist.  Therefore  they  can  be  studied,  de- 
scribed, classified,  placed  in  order  of  development, 
and  treated  as  a  branch  of  sociology  and  as  one 
department  of  the  evolution  of  the  world.  And 
all  this  can  be  done  without  once  asking  the  ques- 
tion whether  religious  belief  is  true  and  right  and 
good,  or  not.  Whether  it  is  pronounced  true  or 
false  by  you  or  me,  will  not  in  the  least  shake  the 
fact  that  it  has  existed  for  thousands  of  years,  that 
it  has  had  a  history  during  that  period,  and  that 
that  history  may  be  written.  We  may  have 
doubts  whether  the  institution  of  private  property 
is  a  good  thing,  or  whether  barter  and  exchange 
are  desirable  proceedings.  But  we  shall  not  doubt 
that  private  property  exists  or  that  it  may  be  ex- 
changed. And  we  shall  not  imagine  that  the  science 
of  political  economy,  which  deals,  among  other 


0  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

things  with  the  production  and  exchange  of  wealth 
which  is  private  property,  makes  any  pronounce- 
ment whatever  on  the  question  whether  private 
property  is  or  is  not  an  institution  which  we  ought  to 
support  and  believe  in.  The  conclusions  established 
by  the  science  of  political  economy  are  set  forth  be- 
fore the  whole  world ;  and  men  may  use  them  for  what 
purpose  they  will.  They  may  and  do  draw  very 
different  inferences  from  them,  even  contradictory 
inferences.  But  if  they  do,  it  is  because  they  use 
them  for  different  ends  or  contradictory  purposes. 
And  the  fact  that  the  communist  or  socialist  uses 
political  economy  to  support  his  views  no  more 
proves  that  socialism  is  the  logical  consequence  of 
political  economy  than  the  fact  that  the  atheist 
uses  or  misuses,  for  his  own  purposes,  the  conclu- 
sions of  the  science  of  religion  proves  his  inferences 
to  be  the  logical  outcome  of  the  science. 

The  science  of  religion  deals  essentially  with  the 
one  fact  that  religion  has  existed  and  does  exist. 
It  is  from  that  fact  that  the  missionary  will  start; 
and  it  is  with  men  who  do  not  question  the  fact 
that  he  will  have  to  do.  The  science  of  religion 
seeks  to  trace  the  historic  growth,  the  evolution  of 
religion;  to  establish  what  actually  was,  not  to 


INTRODUCTION  7 

judge  what  ought  to  have  been,  —  science  knows 
no  "ought,"  in  that  sense  or  rather  in  that  tense, 
the  past  tense.  Its  work  is  done,  its  last  word  has 
been  said,  when  it  has  demonstrated  what  was. 
It  is  the  heart  which  sighs  to  think  what  might  have 
been,  and  which  puts  on  it  a  higher  value  than  it 
does  on  what  actually  came  to  pass.  There  is 
then  another  order  in  which  facts  may  be  ranged 
besides  the  chronological  order  in  which  histori- 
cally they  occurred;  and  that  is  the  order  of  their 
value.  It  is  an  order  in  which  we  do  range  facts,  when- 
ever we  criticise  them.  It  is  the  order  in  which  we 
range  them,  whenever  we  pass  judgment  on  them. 
Or,  rather,  passing  judgment  on  them  is  placing  them 
in  the  order  of  their  value.  And  the  chronological 
order  of  their  occurrence  is  quite  a  different  thing 
from  the  order  in  which  we  rank  them  when  we 
judge  them  according  to  their  value  and  importance. 
It  is,  or  rather  it  would  be,  quite  absurd  to  say,  in 
the  case  of  literature,  or  art,  for  instance,  that  the 
two  orders  are  identical.  There  it  is  obvious  and 
universally  admitted  that  one  period  may  reach  a 
higher  level  than  another  which  in  point  of  time  is 
later.  The  classical  period  is  followed  by  a  post- 
classical  period ;  culmination  is  followed  by  decline. 


8  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Now,  this  difference  in  point  of  the  literary  or 
artistic  value  of  two  periods  is  as  real  and  as  funda- 
mental as  the  time  order  or  chronological  relation 
of  the  two  periods.  It  would  be  patently  ridiculous 
for  any  ardent  maintainer  of  the  importance  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  good  literature  and  bad,  good 
art  and  bad  art,  to  say  that  the  one  period,  being 
good,  must  have  been  chronologically  prior  to  the 
other,  because,  from  the  point  of  art,  it  was  better 
than  that  other.  Every  one  can  see  that.  The 
chronological  order,  the  historic  order,  is  one  thing; 
the  order  of  literary  value  or  artistic  importance  is 
another.  But  if  this  is  granted,  and  every  one  will 
grant  it,  then  it  is  also,  and  thereby,  granted  that 
I  the  historic  order  of  events  is  not  the  same  thing 
^as  the  order  of  their  value,  and  is  no  guide  to  it. 
Thus  far  I  have  illustrated  these  remarks  by 
reference  to  literary  and  artistic  values.  But  I 
need  hardly  say  that  I  have  been  thinking  really  all 
the  time  of  religious  values.  If  the  student  of 
literature  or  of  art  surveys  the  history  of  art  and 
literature  with  the  purpose  of  judging  the  value  of 
the  works  produced,  the  student  of  religion  may 
and  must  survey  the  history  of  religion  with  the 
same  purpose.  If  the  one  student  is  entitled,  as  he 


INTRODUCTION  9 

justly  is  entitled,  to  say  that  the  difference  between 
the  literary  or  artistic  value  of  two  periods  is  as  real 
and  as  fundamental  as  is  their  difference  in  the 
order  of  time,  then  the  student  of  religion  is  claim- 
ing no  exceptional  or  suspicious  privilege  for  him- 
self. He  is  claiming  no  privilege  at  all ;  he  is  but 
'exercising  the  common  rights  of  all  students  like 
himself,  when  he  points  out  that  differences  in 
religious  values  are  just  as  real  and  just  as  funda- 
mental as  the  historic  or  chronological  order  itself. . 
The  assignment  of  values,  then,  —  be  it  the  assign- 
ment of  the  value  of  works  of  art,  literature,  or 
religion, — is  a  proceeding  which  is  not  only  possible 
(as  will  be  somewhat  contemptuously  admitted  by 
those  who  believe  that  evolution  is  progress,  and  that 
there  is  no  order  of  value  distinct  from  the  order  of 
history  and  chronological  succession)  ;  the  assign- 
ment of  value  is  not  only  permissible  (as  may  be 
admitted  by  those  who  believe,  or  for  want  of 
thought  fancy  they  believe,  that  the  historic  order 
of  events  is  the  only  order  which  can  really  exist), 
it  is  absolutely  inevitable.  It  is  the  concomitant  or 
rather  an  integral  part  of  every  act  of  perception. 
Everything  that  we  perceive  is  either  dismissed  from 
attention  because  it  is  judged  at  the  moment  to  havQ 


10  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

no  value,  or,  if  it  has  value,  attention  is  concen- 
trated upon  it. 

From  this  point  of  view,  then,  it  should  be  clear 
that  there  is  some  deficiency  in  such  a  science  as  the 
science  of  religion,  which,  by  the  very  conditions 
that  determine  its  existence,  is  precluded  from  ever 
raising  the  question  of  the  value  of  any  of  the 
religions  with  which  it  deals.  Why  does  it  volun- 
tarily, deliberately,  and  of  its  own  accord,  rigidly 
exclude  the  question  whether  religions  have  any 
value  —  whether  religion  itself  has  any  value  ? 
One  answer  there  is  to  that  question  which  once 
would  have  been  accepted  as  conclusive,  viz.  that 
the  object  of  science  is  truth.  That  answer  deli- 
cately implies  that  whether  religion  has  any  value  is 
an  enquiry  to  which  no  truthful  answer  can  be  given. 
The  object  of  science  is  truth;  therefore  science 
alone,  with  all  modesty  be  it  said,  can  attain  truth. 
Science  will  not  ask  the  question  —  or,  when  it  is 
merciful,  abstains  from  asking  the  question  — 
whether  religion  is  true.  So  the  reasonable  and 
truthful  man  must,  on  that  point,  necessarily  be  ag- 
nostic :  whether  religion  is  true,  he  does  not  know. 

This  train  of  inferences  follows  —  so  far  as  it  is 
permitted  illogical  inferences  to  follow  at  all  —  from 


INTRODUCTION  II 

the  premise  that  the  object  of  science  is  truth.  Or, 
rather,  it  follows  from  that  premise  as  we  should  now 
understand  it,  viz.  that  the  object  of  historic  science 
is  historic  truth.  That  is  the  object  of  the  science 
of  religion  —  to  be  true  to  the  historic  facts,  to 
discover  and  to  state  them  accurately.  On  the 
principle  of  the  division  of  labour,  or  on  the  principle 
of  taking  one  thing  at  a  time,  it  is  obviously  wise 
that  when  we  are  endeavouring  to  discover  the  his- 
toric sequence  of  events,  we  should  confine  our- 
selves to  that  task  and  not  suffer  ourselves  to  be 
distracted  and  diverted  by  other  and  totally  differ- 
ent considerations.  The  science  of  religion,  there- 
fore, is  justified,  in  the  opinion  of  all  who  are  en- 
titled to  express  an  opinion,  in  steadfastly  declining 
to  consider  any  other  point  than  the  historic  order 
of  the  facts  with  which  it  deals.  But  in  so  declining 
to  go  beyond  its  self-appointed  task  of  reconstituting 
the  historic  order  of  events  and  tracing  the  evolu- 
tion of  religion,  it  does  not,  thereby,  imply  that  it  is 
impossible  to  place  them,  or  correctly  place  them, 
in  their  order  of  value.  To  say  that  they  have  no 
value  would  be  just  as  absurd  as  to  say  that  works 
of  literature  or  art  have  no  literary  or  artistic  value. 
To  say  that  it  is  difficult  to  assign  their  value  may  be 


12  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

true,  but  is  no  argument  against,  it  is  rather  a  stimu- 
lus in  favour  of,  making  the  attempt.  And  it  is  just 
the  order  value,  the  relative  value,  of  forms  of  religion 
which  is  of  absorbing  interest  to  missionaries.  It 
is  a  valuation  which  is  essential  to  what  I  have 
already  designated  as  the  applied  science  of  religion. 
Thus  far  in  speaking  of  the  distinction  between 
the  historic  order  in  which  the  various  forms  of  art, 
literature,  and  religion  have  occurred,  and  the  order 
of  value  in  which  the  soul  of  every  man  who  is  sen- 
sible either  to  art  or  to  literature  or  to  religion 
instinctively  attempts  to  place  them,  I  have  neces- 
sarily assumed  the  position  of  one  who  looks  back- 
ward over  the  past.  It  was  impossible  to  compare 
and  contrast  the  order  value  with  the  historic  order, 
save  by  doing  so.  It  was  necessary  to  point  out 
that  the  very  same  facts  which  can  be  arranged  chro- 
nologically and  in  the  order  of  their  evolution  can 
also  be  —  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  by  every  man  are 
—  arranged  more  or  less  roughly,  more  or  less  cor- 
rectly, or  incorrectly,  in  the  order  of  their  value.  It 
is  now  necessary  for  us  to  set  our  faces  towards  the 
future.  I  say  "necessary"  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  idea  of  "value"  carries  with  it  a  reference 
to  the  future.  If  a  thing  has  value,  it  is  because  we 


INTRODUCTION  13 

judge  that  it  may  produce  some  effect  and  serve 
some  purpose  which  we  foresee,  or  at  least  surmise. 
If,  on  looking  back  upon  past  history,  we  pronounce 
that  an  event  had  value,  we  do  so  because  we  see 
that  it  served,  or  might  have  served,  some  end  of 
which  we  approve.  Its  value  is  relative  in  our  eyes 
to  some  end  or  purpose  which  was  relatively  future 
to  it.  The  objects  which  we  aim  at,  the  ends  after 
which  we  strive,  are  in  the  future.  Those  things 
have  value  which  may  subserve  our  ends  and  help 
us  to  attain  our  purposes.  And  our  purposes,  our 
ends,  and  objects  are  in  the  future.  There,  there  is 
hope  and  freedom,  room  to  work,  the  chance  of 
remedying  the  errors  of  the  past,  the  opportunity  to 
make  some  forward  strides  and  to  help  others  on. 

It  is  the  end  we  aim  at,  the  object  we  strive  for, 
the  ideal  we  set  before  us,  that  gives  value  to  what 
we  do,  and  to  what  has  been  done  by  us  and  others. 
Now  our  ends,  our  objects,  and  our  ideals  are  matters 
of  the  will,  on  which  the  will  is  set,  and  not  merely 
matters  of  which  we  have  intellectual  apprehension. 
They  are  not  past  events  but  future  possibilities. 
The  conviction  that  we  can  attain  them  or  attain 
toward  them  is  not,  when  stated  as  a  proposition, 
a  proposition  that  can  be  proved,  as  a  statement 


14  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

referring  to  the  past  may  be  proved:  but  it  is  a 
conviction  which  we  hold,  or  a  conviction  which 
holds  us,  just  as  strongly  as  any  conviction  that  we 
have  about  any  past  event  of  history.  The  whole 
action  of  mankind,  every  action  that  every  man 
performs,  is  based  upon  that  conviction.  It  is  the 
basis  of  all  that  we  do,  of  everything  that  is  and  has 
been  done  by  us  and  others.  And  it  is  Faith.  In 
that  sign  alone  can  the  world  be  conquered. 

When,  then,  the  man  of  religion  proposes  by  faith 
to  conquer  the  world,  he  is  simply  doing,  wittingly 
and  in  full  consciousness  of  what  he  is  doing,  that 
which  every  man  does  in  his  every  action,  even  though 
he  may  not  know  it.  To  make  it  a  sneer  or  a  re- 
proach that  religion  is  a  mere  matter  of  faith;  to 
imagine  that  there  is  any  better,  or  indeed  that  there 
is  any  other,  ground  of  action,  —  is  demonstrably 
unreasonable.  The  basis  of  such  notions  is,  of 
course,  the  false  idea  that  the  man  of  sense  acts  upon 
knowledge,  and  that  the  man  who  acts  on  faith  is 
not  a  sensible  man.  The  error  of  such  notions  may 
be  exposed  in  a  sentence.  What  knowledge  have 
\we  of  the  future?  We  have  none.  Absolutely 
/none.  We  expect  that  nature  will  prove  uniform, 
that  causes  will  produce  their  effects.  We  believe 


INTRODUCTION  1 5 

the  future  will  resemble,  to  some  extent,  the  past. 
But  we  have  no  knowledge  of  the  future ;  and  such 
belief  as  we  have  about  it,  like  all  other  belief, — 
whether  it  be  belief  in  religion  or  in  science, — is 
simply  faith.  When,  then,  the  man  of  science  con- 
sults the  records  of  the  past  or  the  experiments  of 
the  present  for  guidance  as  to  what  will  or  may  be, 
he  is  exhibiting  his  faith  not  in  science,  but  in  some 
reality,  in  some  real  being,  in  which  is  no  shadow  of 
turning.  When  the  practical  man  uses  the  results 
of  pure  science  for  some  practical  end,  he  is  taking 
them  on  faith  and  uses  them  in  the  further  faith 
that  the  end  he  aims  at  can  be  realised,  and  shall 
by  him  be  realised,  if  not  in  one  way,  then  in  another. 
The  missionary,  then,  who  uses  the  results  of  the 
science  of  religion,  who  seeks  to  benefit  by  an 
applied  science  of  religion,  is  but  following  in  the 
footsteps  of  the  practical  man,  and  using  business 
methods  toward  the  end  he  is  going  to  realise. 

The  end  he  is  going  to  realise  is  to  convert  men  to 
Christianity.  The  faith  in  which  he  acts  is  that 
Christianity  is  the  highest  form  which  religion  can 
take,  the  final  form  it  shall  take.  As  works  of  art 
or  literature  may  be  classed  either  according  to  order 
of  history  or  order  of  value,  so  the  works  of  the 


1 6  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

religious  spirit  may  be  classed,  not  only  in  chrono- 
logical order,  but  also  in  order  of  religious  value.  I 
am  not  aware  that  any  proof  can  be  given  to  show 
that  any  given  period  of  art  or  literature  is  better 
than  any  other.  The  merits  of  Shakespeare  or  of 
Homer  may  be  pointed  out ;  and  they  may,  or  they 
may  not,  when  pointed  out,  be  felt.  If  they  are  felt, 
no  proof  is  needed ;  if  they  are  not,  no  proof  is  pos- 
sible. But  they  can  be  pointed  out  —  by  one  who 
feels  them.  And  they  can  be  contrasted  with  the 
work  of  other  poets  in  which  they  are  less  conspicu- 
ous. And  the  contrast  may  reveal  the  truth  in  a 
way  in  which  otherwise  it  could  never  have  been 
made  plain. 

I  know  no  other  way  in  which  the  relative  values 
of  different  forms  of  religion  can  become  known  or 
be  made  known.  You  may  have  been  tempted  to 
reflect,  whilst  I  have  been  speaking,  that,  on  the 
principle  I  have  laid  down,  there  is  no  reason  why 
there  should  not  be  five  hundred  applied  sciences, 
or  applications  of  the  science,  of  religion,  instead 
of  one ;  for  every  one  of  the  many  forms  of  religion 
may  claim  to  apply  the  science  of  religion  to  its 
own  ends.  To  that  I  may  reply  first,  that  a  priori 
you  would  expect  that  every  nation  would  set  up 


INTRODUCTION  17 

its  own  literature  as  the  highest ;  but,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  you  find  Shakespeare  generally  placed  highest 
amongst  dramatists,  Homer  amongst  epic  poets. 
You  do  not  find  the  conception  of  literary  merit 
varying  from  nation  to  nation  in  such  a  way  that 
there  are  as  many  standards  of  value  as  there  are 
persons  to  apply  them.  You  find  that  there  tends 
to  be  one  standard.  Next,  since  the  different  forms 
of  religion  must  be  compared  if  their  relative  values 
are  to  be  ascertained,  the  method  of  the  applied 
science  of  religion  must  be  the  method  of  com- 
parison. Whatever  the  outcome  that  is  anticipated 
from  the  employment  of  the  applied  science,  it  is 
by  the  method  of  comparison  that  it  must  act.  And 
one  indication  of  genuine  faith  is  readiness  to  em- 
ploy that  method,  and  assured  confidence  in  the 
result  of  its  employment.  The  missionary's  life  is 
the  best,  because  the  most  concrete  example  of  the 
practical  working  of  the  method  of  comparison; 
and  the  outcome  of  the  comparison  which  is  made 
by  those  amongst  whom  and  for  whom  he  works 
makes  itself  felt  in  their  hearts,  their  lives,  and  some- 
times in  their  conversion.  It  is  the  best  example, 
because  the^  value  of  a  religion  to  be  known  must  be 
felt.  But  though  it  is  the  best  because  it  is  the 


1 8  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

simplest,  the  most  direct,  and  the  most  convincing, 
it  is  not  that  which  addresses  itself  primarily  to  the 
reason,  and  it  is  not  one  which  is  produced  by  the 
applied  science  of  religion.  It  is  not  one  which 
can  be  produced  by  any  science,  pure  or  applied. 
The  object  of  the  applied  science  of  religion  is  to 
enable  the  missionary  himself  to  compare  forms  of 
religion,  incidentally  in  order  that  he  may  know 
what  by  faith  he  feels,  and  without  faith  he  could 
not  feel,  viz.  that  Christianity  is  the  highest  form; 
but  still  more  in  order  that  he  may  teach  others,  and 
may  have  at  his  command  the  facts  afforded  by  the 
science  of  religion,  wherewith  to  appeal,  when 
necessary,  to  the  reason  and  intelligence  as  well  as 
to  the  hearts  and  feelings  of  those  for  whose  salva- 
tion he  is  labouring. 

The  time  has  happily  gone  by  when  the  mere 
idea  of  comparing  Christianity  with  any  other 
religion  would  have  been  rejected  with  horror  as 
treasonous  and  treacherous.  The  fact  that  that 
time  has  now  gone  by  is  in  itself  evidence  of  a 
stronger  faith  in  Christianity.  What,  if  it  was  not 
fear,  at  any  rate  presented  the  appearance  of  fear, 
has  been  banished ;  and  we  can  and  do,  in  the  greater 
faith  that  has  been  vouchsafed  to  us,  look  with  con- 


INTRODUCTION  1 9 

fidence  on  the  proposal  to  compare  Christianity 
with  other  religions.  The  truth  cannot  but  gain 
thereby,  and  we  rest  on  Him  who  is  the  way  and 
the  truth.  We  recognise  fully  and  freely  that  com- 
parison implies  similarity,  points  of  resemblance, 
ay!  and  even  features  of  identity.  And  of  that 
admission  much  has  been  made  —  and  more  than 
can  be  maintained.  It  has  been  pressed  to  mean 
that  all  forms  of  religion,  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest,  are  identical;  that  therefore  there  is  noth- 
ing more  or  other  in  the  highest  than  in  the  lowest ; 
and  that  in  the  lowest  you  see  how  barbarous  is 
religion  and  how  unworthy  of  civilised  man.  Now, 
that  course  of  argument  is  open  to  one  obvious  ob- 
jection which  would  be  fatal  to  it,  even  if  it  were  the 
only  objection,  which  it  is  not.  That  objection  is 
that  whether  we  are  using  the  method  of  compari- 
son for  the  purpose  of  estimating  the  relative  values 
of  different  forms  of  religion;  or  whether  we  are 
using  the  comparative  method  of  science,  with  the 
object  of  discovering  and  establishing  facts,  quite 
apart  from  the  value  they  may  have  for  any  pur- 
pose they  may  be  put  to  when  they  have  been 
established;  in  either  case,  comparison  is  only 
applied,  and  can  only  be  applied  to  things  which, 


2O  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

though  they  resemble  one  another,  also  differ  from 
.  one  another.  It  is  because  they  differ,  at  first  sight, 
that  the  discovery  of  their  resemblance  is  impor- 
tant. And  it  is  on  that  aspect  of  the  truth  that  the 
comparative  method  of  science  dwells.  Com- 
parative philology,  for  instance,  devotes  itself  to 
establishing  resemblances  between,  say,  the  Indo- 
European  languages,  which  for  long  were  not  sus- 
pected to  bear  any  likeness  to  one  another  or  to  have 
any  connection  with  each  other.  Those  resem- 
blances are  examined  more  and  more  closely,  are 
stated  with  more  and  more  precision,  until  they  are 
stated  as  laws  of  comparative  philology,  and  recog- 
nised as  laws  of  science  to  which  there  are  no  excep- 
tions. Yet  when  the  resemblances  have  been 
worked  out  to  the  furthest  detail,  no  one  imagines 
that  Greek  and  Sanskrit  are  the  same  language,  or 
that  the  differences  between  them  are  negligible.  It 
is  then  surprising  that  any  student  of  comparative 
religion  should  imagine  that  the  discovery  or  the 
recognition  of  points  of  likeness  between  the  reli- 
gions compared  will  ever  result  in  proving  that  the 
differences  between  them  are  negligible  or  non- 
existent. Such  an  inference  is  unscientific,  and 
it  has  only  to  be  stated  to  show  that  the  student 


INTRODUCTION  21 

of  comparative  religion  is  but  exercising  a  right 
common  to  all  students  of  all  sciences,  when  he 
claims  that  points  of  difference  cannot  be  over- 
looked or  thrust  aside. 

If,  then,  the  student  of  the  science  of  religion 
directs  his  attention  primarily  to  the  discovery  of 
resemblances  between  religions  which  at  first  sight 
bear  no  more  resemblance  to  one  another  than 
Greek  did  to  the  Celtic  tongues;  if  the  compara- 
tive method  of  science  dwells  upon  the  fact  that 
things  which  differ  from  one  another  may  also  re- 
semble one  another,  and  that  their  resemblances  may 
be  stated  in  the  form  of  scientific  laws,  —  there  is 
still  another  aspect  of  the  truth,  and  it  is  that  between 
things  which  resemble  one  another  there  are  also 
differences.  And  the  jury  of  the  world  will  ulti- 
mately demand  to  know  the  truth  and  the  whole 
truth. 

Now,  to  get  not  only  at  the  truth,  but  at  the  whole 
of  the  truth,  is  precisely  the  business  of  the  applied 
science  of  religion,  and  is  the  very  object  of  that 
which,  in  order  to  distinguish  it  from  the  compara- 
tive method  of  science,  I  have  called  the  method 
of  comparison.  For  the  purposes  of  fair  compari- 
son not  only  must  the  resemblances,  which  the 


22  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

comparative  method  of  science  dwells  on,  be 
taken  into  account,  but  the  differences,  also,  must  be 
weighed.  And  it  is  the  business  of  the  method  of 
comparison,  the  object  of  the  applied  science  of 
religion,  to  do  both  things.  Neither  of  the  two  can 
be  dispensed  with;  neither  is  more  important  than 
the  other;  but  for  the  practical  purposes  of  the 
missionary  it  is  important  to  begin  with  the  resem- 
blances ;  and  on  grounds  of  logic  and  of  theory,  the 
resemblances  must  be  first  established,  if  the  im- 
portance, nay !  the  decisive  value,  of  the  differences 
is  to  go  home  to  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  mis- 
sionary's hearers.  The  resemblances  are  there  and 
are  to  be  studied  ultimately  in  order  to  bring  out 
the  differences  and  make  them  stand  forth  so  plainly 
as  to  make  choice  between  the  higher  form  of  reli- 
gion and  the  lower  easy,  simply  because  the  differ- 
ence is  so  manifest.  Now,  the  missionary's  hearer 
could  not  know,  much  less  appreciate,  the  difference, 
the  superiority  of  Christianity,  as  long  as  Chris- 
tianity was  unknown  to  him.  And  it  is  equally 
manifest,  though  it  has  never  been  officially  recog- 
nised until  now  and  by  the  Hartford  Theological 
Seminary,  that  neither  can  the  missionary  ade- 
quately set  forth  the  superiority  of  Christianity  to 


INTRODUCTION  23 

the  lower  forms  of  religion,  unless  he  knows  some- 
thing about  them  and  about  the  points  in  which  their 
inferiority  consists.  Hitherto  he  has  had  to  learn 
that  for  himself,  as  he  went  on,  and,  as  it  were,  by 
rule  of  thumb.  But,  on  business  principles,  economy 
of  labour  and  efficiency  in  work  will  be  better  se- 
cured if  he  is  taught  before  he  goes  out,  and  is 
taught  on  scientific  methods.  What  he  has  to 
learn  is  the  resemblances  between  the  various  forms 
of  religion,  the  differences  between  them,  and  the 
relative  values  of  those  differences. 

It  may  perhaps  be  asked,  Why  should  those  dif- 
ferences exist  ?  And  if  the  question  should  be  put, 
I  am  inclined  to  say  that  to  give  the  answer  is  beyond 
the  scope  of  the  applied  science  of  religion.  The 
method  of  comparison  assumes  that  the  differences 
do  exist,  and  it  cannot  begin  to  be  employed  unless 
and  until  they  exist.  They  are  and  must  be  taken 
for  granted,  at  any  rate  by  the  applied  science  of 
religion,  and  if  the  method  of  comparison  is  to  be 
set  to  work.  Indeed,  if  we  may  take  the  principle 
of  evolution  to  be  the  differentiation  of  the  homo- 
geneous, we  may  go  further  and  say  that  the  whole 
theory  of  evolution,  and  not  merely  a  particular 
historic  science,  such  as  the  science  of  religion, 


24  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

postulates  differentiation  and  the  principle  of  differ- 
ence, and  does  not  explain  it,  —  evolution  cannot 
start,  the  homogeneous  cannot  be  other  than  homo- 
geneous, until  the  principle  of  difference  and  the 
power  of  differentiation  is  assumed. 

That  the  science  of  religion  at  the  end  leaves 
untouched  those  differences  between  religions  which 
it  recognised  at  the  beginning,  is  a  point  on  which  I 
insisted,  as  against  those  who  unwarrantably  pro- 
\claim  the  science  to  have  demonstrated  that  all 
religions  alike  are  barbarisms  or  survivals  of  bar- 
barism. It  is  well,  therefore,  to  bear  that  fact  in  mind 
when  attempts  are  made  to  explain  the  existence  of 
/the  differences  by  postulating  a  period  when  they 
were  non-existent.  That  postulate  may  take  form 
in  the  supposition  that  originally  the  true  religion 
alone  existed,  and  that  the  differences  arose  later. 
That  is  a  supposition  which  has  been  made  by  more 
than  one  people,  and  in  more  ages  than  one.  It 
carries  with  it  the  consequence  that  the  history  — 
it  would  be  difficult  to  call  it  the  evolution  and 
impossible  to  call  it  the  progress  —  of  religion  has 
been  one  of  degradation  generally.  Owing,  however, 
to  the  far-reaching  and  deep-penetrating  influence 
of  the  theory  of  evolution,  it  has  of  late  grown  cus- 


INTRODUCTION  25 

ternary  to  assume  that  the  movement,  the  course  of 
religious  history,  has  been  in  the  opposite  direction ; 
and  that  it  has  moved  upwards  from  the  lowest  forms 
of  religion  known  to  us,  or  from  some  form  analogous 
to  the  lowest  known  forms,  through  the  higher  to 
the  highest.  This  second  theory,  however  different 
in  its  arrangement  of  the  facts  from  the  Golden  Age 
theory  first  alluded  to,  is  still  fundamentally  in 
agreement  with  it,  inasmuch  as  it  also  assumes  that 
the  differences  exhibited  later  in  the  history  of 
religion  at  first  were  non-existent.  Both  theories 
assume  the  existence  of  the  originally  homogeneous, 
but  they  disagree  as  to  the  nature  of  the  differences 
which  supervened,  and  also  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
originally  homogeneous. 

I  wish  therefore  to  call  attention  to  the  simple 
truth  that  the  facts  at  the  disposal  of  the  science  of 
religion  neither  enable  nor  warrant  us  to  decide 
between  these  two  views.  If  we  were  to  come  to  a 
decision  on  the  point,  we  should  have  to  travel  far 
beyond  the  confines  of  the  science  of  religion,  or 
the  widest  bounds  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  and 
enquire  why  there  should  be  error  as  well  as  truth  — 
or,  to  put  the  matter  very  differently,  why  there 
should  be  truth  at  all.  But  if  we  started  travelling 


26  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

on  that  enquiry,  we  should  not  get  back  in  time  for 
this  course  of  lectures.  Fortunately  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  take  a  ticket  for  that  journey  —  perhaps  not 
possible  to  secure  a  return  ticket.  We  have  only 
to  recognise  that  the  science  of  religion  confines 
itself  to  constating  and  tracing  the  differences,  and 
does  not  attempt  to  explain  why  they  should  exist; 
while  the  applied  science  of  religion  is  concerned 
with  the  practical  business  of  bringing  home  the 
difference  between  Christianity  and  other  forms  of 
religion  to  the  hearts  of  those  whose  salvation  may 
turn  on  whether  the  missionary  has  been  properly 
equipped  for  his  task. , 

If,  now,  I  announce  that  for  the  student  of  the 
applied  science  it  is  advisable  that  he  should  turn 
his  attention  in  the  first  place  to  the  lowest  forms  of 
religion,  the  announcement  need  not  be  taken  to 
mean  that  a  man  cannot  become  a  student  of  the 
science  of  religion,  whether  pure  or  applied,  unless 
he  assumes  that  the  lowest  is  the  most  primitive 
form.  The  science  of  religion,  as  it  pushes  its 
enquiries,  may  possibly  come  across  —  may  even 
already  have  come  across  —  the  lowest  form  to 
which  it  is  possible  for  man  to  descend.  But 
whether  that  form  is  the  most  primitive  as  well  as 


INTRODUCTION  2J 

the  lowest,  —  still  more,  whether  it  is  the  most 
primitive  because  it  is  the  lowest,  —  will  be  ques- 
tions which  will  not  admit  of  being  settled  offhand. 
And  in  the  meantime  we  are  not  called  upon  to 
answer  them  in  the  affirmative  as  a  sine  qua  non  of 
being  admitted  students  of  the  science. 

The  reason  for  beginning  with  the  lowest  forms  is 
—  as  is  proper  in  a  practical  science  —  a  practical 
one.  As  I  have  already  said,  if  the  missionary  is  to 
succeed  in  his  work,  he  must  know  and  teach  the 
difference  and  the  value  of  the  difference  between 
Christianity  and  other  religions.  But  difference 
implies  similarity:  we  cannot  specify  the  points  of 
difference  between  two  things  without  presupposing 
some  similarity  between  them, —  at  any  rate  suffi- 
cient similarity  to  make  a  comparison  of  them  profit- 
able. Now,  the  similarity  between  the  higher  forms 
of  religion  is  such  that  there  is  no  need  to  demon- 
strate it,  in  order  to  justify  our  proceeding  to  dwell 
upon  the  differences.  But  the  similarity  between  the 
higher  and  the  lower  forms  is  far  from  being  thus 
obvious.  Indeed,  in  some  cases,  for  example  in  the 
case  of  some  Australian  tribes,  there  is  alleged,  by 
some  students  of  the  science  of  religion,  to  be  such 
a  total  absence  of  similarity  that  we  are  entitled  or 


28  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

compelled  to  recognise  that  however  liberally,  or 
loosely,  we  relax  our  definition  of  religion,  we  must 
pronounce  those  tribes  to  be  without  religion.  The 
allegation  thus  made,  the  question  thus  raised, 
evidently  is  of  practical  importance  for  the  practical 
purposes  of  the  missionary.  Where  some  resem- 
blances exist  between  the  higher  and  the  lower 
forms  of  religion,  those  resemblances  may  be  made, 
and  should  be  made,  the  ground  from  which  trie  mis- 
sionary should  proceed  to  point  out  by  contrast  the 
differences,  and  so  to  set  forth  the  higher  value  of 
Christianity.  But  if  no  such  resemblances  should 
exist,  they  cannot  be  made  a  basis  for  the  mission- 
ary's work.  Without  proceeding  in  this  introduc- 
tory lecture  to  discuss  the  question  whether  there  are 
any  tribes  whatever  that  are  without  religion,  I  may 
point  out  that  religion,  in  all  its  forms,  is,  in  one  of 
its  aspects,  a  yearning  and  aspiration  after  God,  a 
search  after  Him,  peradventure  we  may  find  Him. 
And  if  it  be  alleged  that  in  some  cases  there  is  no 
search  after  Him,  —  that  amongst  civilised  men, 
amongst  our  own  acquaintances,  there  is  in  some 
cases  no  search  and  no  aspiration,  and  that  therefore 
among  the  more  backward  peoples  of  the  earth 
there  may  also  be  tribes  to  whom  the  very  idea  of 


INTRODUCTION  2  9 

such  a  search  is  unknown,  —  then  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  a  search,  after  any  object  whatever,  may 
be  dropped,  may  even  be  totally  abandoned;  and 
yet  the  heart  may  yearn  after  that  which  it  is  per- 
suaded —  or,  it  may  be,  is  deluded  into  thinking  — 
it  can  never  find.  Perhaps,  however,  that  way  of 
putting  it  may  be  objected  to,  on  the  ground  that  it 
is  a  petitio  principii  and  assumes  the  very  fact  it 
is  necessary  to  prove,  viz.  that  the  lowest  tribes  that 
are  or  can  be  known  to  us  have  made  the  search 
and  given  it  up,  whereas  the  contention  is  that  they 
have  never  made  the  search.  That  contention,  I 
will  remark  in  passing,  is  one  which  never  can  be 
proved.  But  to  those  who  consider  that  it  is  prob- 
able in  itself,  and  that  it  is  a  necessary  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  belief,  I  would  point  out  that  every 
search  is  made  in  hope  —  or,  it  may  be,  in  fear  — 
that  search  presupposes  hope  and  fear.  Vague,  of 
course,  the  hope  may  be;  scarce  conscious,  if  con- 
scious at  all,  of  what  is  hoped.  But  without  hope, 
until  there  are  some  dim  stirrings,  however  vague, 
search  is  unconceivable,  and  it  is  in  and  by  the  pro- 
cess of  search  that  the  hope  becomes  stronger  and 
the  object  sought  more  definite  to  view.  Now, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  tribe  of 


30  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

people  is  without  religion,  it  may  reasonably  be 
|  held  that  the  vast  majority,  at  any  rate,  of  the  peoples 
of  the  earth  have  proceeded  from  hope  to  aspiration 
and  to  search ;  and  if  there  should  be  found  a  tribe 
which  had  not  yet  entered  consciously  on  the  search, 
the  reasonable  conclusion  would  be  not  that  it  is 
exempted  from  the  laws  which  we  see  exemplified 
in  all  other  peoples,  but  that  it  is  tending  to  obey 
the  same  laws  and  is  starting  from  the  same  point 
as  they,  —  that  hope  which  is  the  desire  of  all  na- 
tions and  has  been  made  manifest  in  the  Son  of 
Man. 

Whatever  be  the  earliest  history  of  that  hope, 
whatever  was  its  nature  and  course  in  prehistoric 
times,  it  has  been  worked  out  in  history  in  many 
directions,  under  the  influence  of  many  errors,  into 
many  forms  of  religion.  But  in  them  all  we  feel 
that  there  is  the  same  striving,  the  same  yearning; 
and  we  see  it  with  the  same  pity  and  distress  as  we 
may  observe  the  distorted  motions  of  the  man  who, 
though  partially  paralysed,  yet  strives  to  walk,  and 
move  to  the  place  where  he  would  be.  It  is  with 
these  attempts  to  walk,  in  the  hope  of  giving  help  to 
them  who  need  it,  that  we  who  are  here  to-day  are 
concerned.  We  must  study  them,  if  we  are  to 


INTRODUCTION  31 

understand  them  and  to  remedy  them.  And  there 
is  no  understanding  them,  unless  we  recognise  that 
Mn  them  all  there  is  the  striving  and  yearning  after 
God,  which  may  be  cruelly  distorted,  but  is  always 
there^ 

It  so  happens  that  there  has  been  great  readiness 
on  the  part  of  students  of  the  science  of  religion  to 
recognise  that  belief  in  the  continued  existence  of 
the  soul  after  the  death  of  the  body  has  compara- 
tive universality  amongst  the  lower  races  of  man- 
kind. Their  yearning  after  continued  existence 
developes  into  hope  of  a  future  life ;  and  the  hope, 
or  fear,  takes  many  forms:  the  continued  existence 
may  or  may  not  be  on  this  earth;  it  may  or  may 
not  take  the  shape  of  a  belief  in  the  transmigration 
of  souls ;  it  sometimes  does,  and  sometimes  does  not, 
lead  to  belief  in  the  judgment  of  the  dead  and 
future  punishments  and  rewards;  it  may  or  may 
not  postulate  the  immortality  of  the  soul;  it  may 
shrink  to  comparative,  if  not  absolute,  unimpor- 
tance; or  it  may  be  dreaded  and  denounced  by 
philosophy  and  even  by  religion.  But  whether 
dreaded  or  delighted  in,  whether  developed  by  re- 
ligion or  denounced,  the  tendency  to  the  belief  is 
there  —  universal  among  mankind  and  ineradicable. 


32  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

The  parallel,  then,  between  this  belief  and  the 
belief  or  tendency  to  believe  in  God  is  close  and  in- 
structive ;  and  I  shall  devote  my  next  lecture  there- 
fore to  the  belief  in  a  future  life  among  the  primi- 
tive races  of  mankind.  That  belief  manifests 
itself,  as  I  shall  hope  to  show,  from  the  beginning,  in 
a  yearning  hope  for  the  continued  existence  of  the 
beloved  ones  who  have  been  taken  from  us  by  death, 
as  well  as  in  dread  of  the  ghosts  of  those  who  during 
their  life  were  feared.  But  in  either  case  what  it 
postulates  and  points  to  is  man  living  in  community 
with  man.  It  implies  society;  and  there  again  is 

!  parallel  to  religion.  It  is  with  the  hopes  and  fears 
of  the  community  as  such  that  religion  has  to  do: 
and  it  is  from  that  point  of  view  that  I  shall  start 
when  I  come  to  deal  with  the  subject  of  magic, 
and  its  resemblance  to  and  difference  from  religion. 
Its  resemblance  is  not  accidental  and  the  difference 
is  not  arbitrary:  the  difference  is  that  between 
social  and  anti-social  purposes.  That  difference, 
if  borne  in  mind,  may  give  us  the  clue  to  the  real 
nature  of  fetichism,  —  a  subject  which  will  re- 
quire a  lecture  to  itself.  I  shall  then  proceed  to  a 
topic  which  has  been  ignored  to  a  surprising  extent 
by  the  science  of  religion;  that  is,  the  subject  of 


INTRODUCTION  33 

prayer :  and  the  light  which  is  to  be  derived  thence 
will,  I  trust,  give  fresh  illumination  to  the  meaning 
of  sacrifice.  The  relation  of  religion  to  morality 
will  then  fall  to  be  considered ;  and  my  final  lecture 
will  deal  with  the  place  of  Christianity  in  the  evo- 
lution of  religion. 


IMMORTALITY 

THE  missionary,  like  any  other  practical  man, 
requires  to  know  what  science  can  teach  him  about 
the  material  on  which  he  has  to  work.  So  far  as  is 
possible,  he  should  know  what  materials  are  sound 
and  can  be  used  with  safety  in  his  constructive  work, 
and  what  must  be  thrown  aside,  what  must  be 
destroyed,  if  his  work  is  to  escape  dry-rot  and  to 
stand  as  a  permanent  edifice.  He  should  be  able  to 
feel  confidence,  for  instance,  not  merely  that  jnagic 
and  fetichism  are  the  negation  of  religion,  but  that 
in  teaching  that  fact  he  has  to  support  him  the 
evidence  collected  by  the  science  of  religion;  and 
he  should  have  that  evidence  placed  at  his  disposal 
for  effective  use,  if  need  be. 

It  may  be  also  that  amongst  much  unsound  ma- 
terial he  will  find  some  that  is  sound,  that  may  be 
used,  and  that  he  cannot  afford  to  cast  away.  He 
has  to  work  upon  our  common  humanity,  upon  the 
humanity  common  to  him  and  his  hearers.  He 
has  to  remember  that  no  man  and  no  community  of 

34 


IMMORTALITY  35 

men  ever  is  or  has  been  or  ever  can  be  excluded 
from  the  search  after  God.  And  his  duty,  his 
chosen  duty,  is  to  help  them  in  that  search,  and  as 
far  as  may  be  to  make  the  way  clear  for  them,  and 
to  guide  their  feet  in  the  right  path.  He  will  find 
that  they  have  attempted  to  make  paths  for  them- 
selves ;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  he  will  find  that 
some  of  those  paths  for  some  distance  do  go  in  the 
right  direction;  that  some  of  their  beliefs  have  in 
them  an  element  of  truth,  or  a  groping  after  truth 
which,  rightly  understood,  may  be  made  to  lead  to 
Christianity.  It  is  with  one  of  those  beliefs  —  the 
belief  in  immortality  —  that  I  shall  deal  in  this 
lecture. 

It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  notice  that  the  belief  in  im- 
mortality fills,  I  will  not  say  a  more  important,  but 
a  more  prominent,  place  in  the  hearts  and  hopes  of 
uncivilised  than  of  civilised  man;  and  it  is  also  a 
fact  worthy  of  notice  that  among  primitive  men  the 
belief  in  immortality  is  much  less  intimately  bound 
up  with  religion  than  it  comes  to  be  at  a  later  period 
of  evolution.  The  two  facts  are  probably  not  wholly 
without  relation  to  one  another.  So  long  as  the 
belief  in  immortality  luxuriates  and  grows  wild,  so 
to  speak,  untrained  and  unrestrained  by  religion,  it 


36  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

developes  as  the  fancy  wills,  and  lives  by  flattering  the 
fancy.  When,  however,  the  relations  of  a  future  life 
to  morality  and  religion  come  to  be  realised,  when 
the  conception  of  the  next  world  comes  to  be  moral- 
ised, then  it  becomes  the  subject  of  fear  as  well  as 
of  hope;  and  the  fancy  loses  much  of  the  freedom 
with  which  it  tricked  out  the  pictures  that  once  it 
drew,  purely  according  to  its  own  sweet  liking,  of  a 
future  state.  On  the  one  hand,  the  guilty  mind 
prefers  not  to  dwell  upon  the  day  of  reckoning,  so 
long  as  it  can  stave  off  the  idea ;  and  it  may  suc- 
ceed more  or  less  in  putting  it  on  one  side  until 
the  proximity  of  death  makes  the  idea  insistent. 
Thus  the  mind  more  or  less  deliberately  dismisses 
the  future  life  from  attention.  On  the  other  hand, 
religion  itself  insists  persistently  on  the  fact  that  you 
have  your  duty  here  and  now  in  this  world  to  per- 
form, and  that  the  rest,  the  future  consequences, 
you  must  leave  to  God.  Thus,  once  more,  and  this 
time  not  from  unworthy  motives,  attention  is  di- 
rected to  this  life  rather  than  to  the  next ;  and  it  is 
this  point  that  is  critical  for  the  fate  both  of  the 
belief  in  immortality  and  of  religion  itself.  At  this 
point,  religion  may,  as  in  the  case  of  Buddhism  it 
actually  has  done,  formally  give  up  and  disavow 


IMMORTALITY  37 

belief  in  immortality.  And  in  that  case  it  sows  the 
seed  of  its  own  destruction.  Or  it  may  recognise/ 
that  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  postulated  by  andj 
essential  to  morality  and  religion  alike.  And  in  that 
case,  even  in  that  case  alone,  is  religion  in  a  position 
to  provide  a  logical  basis  for  morality  and  to  place 
the  natural  desire  for  a  future  life  on  a  firmer  basis 
than  the  untutored  fancy  of  primitive  man  could 
find  for  it. 

It  is  then  with  primitive  man  or  with  the  lower 
races  that  we  will  begin,  and  with  "the  comparative 
universality  of  their  belief  in  the  continued  existence 
of  the  soul  after  the  death  of  the  body"  (Tylor, 
Primitive  Culture,  II,  i).  Now,  the  classical  theory 
of  this  belief  is  that  set  forth  by  Professor  Tylor 
in  his  Primitive  Culture.  Whence  does  primitive 
man  get  his  idea  that  the  soul  continues  to  exist 
after  the  death  of  the  body?  the  answer  given  iSjjn, 
the  first  place,  from  the  fact  that  man  dreams.  He 
dreams  of  distant  scenes  that  he  visits  in  his  sleep ; 
it  is  clear,  from  the  evidence  of  those  who  saw  his 
sleeping  body,  that  his  body  certainly  did  not  travel ; 
therefore  he  or  his  soul  must  be  separable  from  the 
body  and  must  have  travelled  whilst  his  body  lay 
unmoving  and  unmoved.  But  he  also  dreams  of 


38  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

those  who  are  now  dead,  and  whose  bodies  he  knows, 
it  may  be,  to  have  been  incinerated.  The  explana- 
tion then  is  obvious  that  they,  too,  or  their  souls,  are 
separable  from  their  bodies ;  and  the  fact  that  they 
survive  death  and  the  destruction  of  the  body  is 
demonstrated  by  their  appearance  in  his  dreams. 
About  the  reality  of  their  appearance  in  his  dreams 
he  has  no  more  doubt  than  he  has  about  the  reality  of 
what  he  himself  does  and  suffers  in  his  dreams.  If, 
however,  the  dead  appeared  only  in  his  dreams,  their 
existence  after  death  might  seem  to  be  limited  to 
the  dream-time.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  ap- 
pear to  him  in  his  waking  moments  also :  ghosts  are 
at  least  as  familiar  to  the  savage  as  to  the  civilised 
man ;  and  thus  the  evidence  of  his  dreams,  which 
first  suggested  his  belief,  is  confirmed  by  the  evidence 
of  his  senses. 

Thus  the  belief  in  the  continued  existence  of  the 
soul  after  the  death  of  the  body  is  traced  back  to 
the  action  of  dreams  and  waking  hallucinations. 
Now,  it  is  inevitable  that  the  inference  should  be 
drawn  that  the  belief  in  immortality  has  thus  been 
tracked  to  its  basis.  And  it  is  inevitable  that  those 
who  start  with  an  inclination  to  regard  the  belief  as 
palpably  absurd  should  welcome  this  exhibition  of 


IMMORTALITY  39 

its  evolution  as  proof  conclusive  that  the  belief 
could  only  have  originated  in  and  can  only  impose 
upon  immature  minds.  To  that  doubtless  it  is  a 
perfectly  sound  reply  to  say  that  the  origin  of  a  belief 
isjone  thing  and  its  validity  quite  another.  The 
way  in  which  we  came  to  hold  the  belief  is  a  matter 
of  historical  investigation,  and  undoubtedly  may 
form  a  very  fascinating  enquiry.  But  the  question 
whether  the  belief  is  true  is  a  question  which  has  to 
be  considered,  no  matter  how  I  got  it,  just  as  the 
question  whether  I  am  committing  a  trespass  or  not 
in  being  on  a  piece  of  ground  cannot  be  settled  by 
any  amount  of  explaining  how  I  got  there.  Or, 
to  put  it  in  another  way,  the  very  risky  path  by  which 
I  have  scrambled  up  a  cliff  does  not  make  the  top 
any  the  less  safe  when  I  have  got  there. 

But  though  it  is  perfectly  logical  to  insist  on  the 
distinction  between  the  origin  and  the  validity  of  any 
belief,  and  to  refuse  to  question  or  doubt  the  validity 
of  the  belief  in  immortality  merely  because  of  the 
origin  ascribed  to  it  by  authorities  on  primitive  cul- 
ture,— that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  examine 
the  origin  suggested  for  it,  to  see  whether  it  is  a  satis- 
factory origin.  And  that  is  what  I  propose  now  to  do. 
I  wish  to  suggest  first  that  belief  in  the  appearance  of 


40  COMPARATIVE     RELIGION 

the  dead,  whether  to  the  dreamer  or  the  ghost-seer, 
is  an  intellectual  belief  as  to  what  occurs  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact ;  and  next  that  thereby  it  is  distinguished 
from  the  desire  for  immortality  which  manifests  it- 
self with  comparative  universality  amongst  the  lower 
races. 

Now,  that  the  appearance  of  the  dead,  whether  to 
the  waking  or  the  sleeping  eye,  is  sufficient  to  start 
the  intellectual  belief  will  be  admitted  alike  by  those 
who  do  and  those  who  do  not  hold  that  it  is  suffi- 
cient logically  to  warrant  the  belief.  But  to  say  that 
it  starts  the  desire  to  see  him  or  her  whom  we  have 
lost,  would  be  ridiculous.  On  the  contrary,  it  would 
be  much  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  it  is  the  longing 
and  the  desire  to  see,  once  again,  the  loved  one,  that 
sets  the  mind  a-dreaming,  and  first  gives  to  the  heart 
hope.  The  fact  that,  were  there  no  desire  for  the 
continuance  of  life  after  the  death  of  the  body,  the 
belief  would  never  have  caught  on  —  that  it  either 
would  never  have  arisen  or  would  have  soon  ceased 
to  exist  —  is  shown  by  the  simple  consideration  that 
only  where  the  desire  for  the  continuance  of  life 
after  death  dies  down  does  the  belief  in  immortality 
tend  to  wane.  If  any  further  evidence  of  that  is 
required  it  may  be  found  in  the  teaching  of  those 


IMMORTALITY  41 

forms  of  philosophy  and  religion  which  endeavour 
to  dispense  with  the  belief  in  immortality,  for  they 
all  recognise  and  indeed  proclaim  that  they  are  based 
on  the  denial  of  the  desire  and  the  will  to  live.  If, 
and  only  if  —  as,  and  only  as  —  the  desire  to  live, 
here  and  hereafter,  can  be  suppressed,  can  the  be- 
lief in  immortality  be  eradicated.  The  basis  of  the 
belief  is  the  desire  for  continued  existence;  and 
that  is  why  the  attempt  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  be- 
lief in  immortality  back  to  the  belief  in  dreams  and 
apparitions  is  one  which  is  not  perfectly  satisfactory ; 
it  leaves  out  of  account  the  desire  without  which  the 
belief  would  not  be  and  is  not  operative. 

But  though  it  leaves  out  an  element  which  is  at 
least  as  important  as  any  element  it  includes,  it 
would  be  an  error  to  take  no  account  of  what  it  does 
contribute.  It  would  be  an  error  of  this  kind  if  we 
closed  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  what  first  arrests 
the  attention  of  man,  in  the  lower  stages  of  his  evolu- 
tion, is  the  survival  of  others  than  himself.  That 
is  the  belief  which  first  manifests  itself  in  his  heart 
and  mind ;  and  what  first  reveals  it  to  him  is  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  dead  to  his  sleeping  or  his  waking 
eye.  He  does  not  first  hope  or  believe  that  he  him- 
self will  survive  the  death  of  the  body  and  then  go 


42  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

on  to  infer  that  therefore  others  also  will  similarly  sur- 
vive. On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  appearance  of  others 
in  his  sleeping  or  waking  moments  that  first  gives 
him  the  idea;  and  it  is  only  later  and  on  reflection 
that  it  occurs  to  him  that  he  also  will  have,  or  be,  a 
ghost. 

But  though  we  must  recognise  the  intellectual  ele- 
ment in  the  belief  and  the  intellectual  processes 
which  are  involved  in  the  belief,  we  must  also  take 
into  account  the  emotional  element,  the  element  of 
desire.  And  first  we  should  notice  that  the  desire  is 
not  a  selfish  or  self-regarding  desire ;  it  is  the  longing 
for  one  loved  and  lost,  of  the  mother  for  her  child, 
or  of  the  child  for  its  mother.  It  is  desire  of  that 
kind  which  gives  to  dreams  and  apparitions  their 
emotional  value,  without  which  they  would  have  little 
significance  and  no  spiritual  importance.  That  is 
the  direction  in  which  we  must  look  for  the  reason 
why,  on  the  one  hand,  belief  in  the  continuation  of 
existence  after  death  seems  at  first  to  have  no  con- 
nection with  religion,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
connection  is  ultimately  shown  by  the  evolution  of 
belief  to  be  so  intimate  that  neither  can  attain  its 
proper  development  without  the  other. 

Dreams  are  occasions  on  which  the  longing  for 


IMMORTALITY  43 

one  loved  and  lost  manifests  itself,  but  they  are  not  the 
cause  or  the  origin  of  the  affection  and  the  longing. 
But  dreams  are  not  exclusively,  specially,  or  even 
usually  the  domain  in  which  religion  plays  a  part. 
Hence  the  visions  of  the  night,  in  which  the  memory 
of  the  departed  and  the  craving  for  reunion  with  them 
are  manifested,  bear  no  necessary  reference  to  reli- 
gion ;  and  it  is  therefore  possible,  and  prima  facie 
plausible,  to  maintain  that  the  belief  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  has  its  origin  in  a  centre  quite  dis- 
tinct from  the  sphere  of  religion,  and  that  it  is  only 
very  slowly,  if  at  all,  that  the  belief  in  immortality 
comes  to  be  incorporated  with  religion.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  very  craving  for  reunion  or  continued  com- 
munion with  those  who  are  felt  not  to  be  lost  but  gone 
before,  is  itself  the  feeling  which  is,  not  the  base, 
but  at  the  base,  of  religion.  In  the  lowest  forms 
to  which  religion  can  be  reduced,  or  in  which  it 
manifests  itself,  religion  is  a  bond  of  community; 
it  manifests  itself  externally  in  joint  acts  of  worship, 
internally  in  the  feeling  that  the  worshippers  are 
bound  together  by  it  and  united  with  the  object  of 
their  worship.  This  feeling  of  communion  is  not  a 
mere  article  of  intellectual  belief,  nor  is  it  imposed 
upon  the  members ;  it  is  what  they  themselves  desire. 


44  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

Hoffding  states  the  truth  when  he  says  that  in  its 
most  rudimentary  form  we  encounter  "religion  under 
the  guise  of  desire";  but  in  saying  so  he  omits  the 
essence  of  the  truth,  that  essence  without  which 
the  truth  that  he  partially  enunciates  may  become 
wholly  misleading, — he  omits  to  say,  and  I  think  he 
fails  to  see,  that  the  desire  which  alone  can  claim  to 
be  considered  as  religious  is  the  desire  of  the  com- 
munity, not  of  the  individual  as  such,  and  the  desire 
of  the  community  as  united  in  common  worship.  The 
idea  of  religion  as  a  bond  of  spiritual  communion  is 
implicit  from  the  first,  even  though  a  long  process 
of  evolution  be  necessary  to  disentangle  it  and  set  it 
forth  self-consciously.  Now,  it  is  precisely  this  spir- 
itual communion  of  which  man  becomes  conscious 
in  his  craving  after  reunion  or  continued  communion 
with  those  who  have  departed  this  life.  And  it  is 
with  the  history  of  his  attempts  to  harmonise  this 
desire  with  what  he  knows  and  demands  of  the 
universe  otherwise,  that  we  are  here  and  now  con- 
cerned. 

So  strong  is  that  desire,  so  inconceivable  is  the 
idea  that  death  ends  all,  and  divorces  from  us  forever 
those  we  have  loved  and  lost  awhile,  that  the  lower 
races  of  mankind  have  been  pretty  generally  driven 


•          IMMORTALITY  45 

to  the  conclusion  that  death  is  a  mistake  or  due  to  a 
mistake.  It  is  widely  held  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  natural  death.  Men  do  of  course  die,  they 
may  be  killed ;  but  it  is  not  an  ordinance  of  nature  that 
a  man  must  be  killed ;  and,  if  he  is  killed,  his  death 
is  not  natural.  So  strong  is  this  feeling  that  when  a 
man  dies  and  his  death  is  not  obviously  a  case  of 
murder,  the  inference  which  the  savage  prefers  to 
draw  is  that  the  death  is  really  a  case  of  murder, 
but  that  the  murder  has  been  worked  by  witchcraft 
or  magic.  Amongst  the  Australian  black  fellows,  as 
we  are  told  by  Messrs.  Spencer  and  Gillen,  "no 
such  thing  as  natural  death  is  realised  by  the  native ; 
a  man  who  dies  has  of  necessity  been  killed  by  some 
other  man  or  perhaps  even  by  a  woman,  and  sooner 
or  later  that  man  or  woman  will  be  attacked ;  "  con- 
sequently, "in  very  many  cases  there  takes  place 
what  the  white  man,  not  seeing  beneath  the  surface, 
not  unnaturally  describes  as  secret  murder;  but  in 
reality  .  .  .  every  case  of  such  secret  murder,  when 
one  or  more  men  stealthily  stalk  their  prey  with  the 
object  of  killing  him,  is  in  reality  the  exacting  of  a 
life  for  a  life,  the  accused  person  being  indicated  by 
the  so-called  medicine  man  as  one  who  has  brought 
about  the  death  of  another  man  by  magic,  and  whose 


46  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

life  must  therefore  be  forfeited"  (Native  Tribes  of 
Central  Australia,  p.  48). 

What  underlies  this  idea  that  by  man  alone  is 
death  brought  into  the  world  is  that  death  is  un- 
natural and  is  no  part  of  the  original  design  of  things. 
When  the  fact  comes  to  be  recognised  undeniably 
that  deaths  not  caused  by  human  agency  do  take 
place,  then  the  fact  requires  explanation;  and  the 
explanation  on  which  primitive  races,  quite  indepen- 
dently of  each  other,  hit  is  that  as  death  was  no  part  of 
the  original  design  of  things,  its  introduction  was  due 
to  accident  or  mistake.  Either  men  were  originally 
exempt  from  death,  or  they  were  intended  to  be 
exempt.  If  they  were  intended  to  be  exempt,  then 
the  inference  drawn  is  that  the  intention  was  frus- 
trated by  the  carelessness  of  the  agent  intrusted  with 
the  duty  of  making  men  deathless.  If  they  were 
originally  exempt  from  death,  then  the  loss  of  the 
exemption  has  to  be  accounted  for.  And  in  either 
case  the  explanation  takes  the  form  of  a  narrative 
which  relates  how  the  mistake  took  place  or  what 
event  it  was  that  caused  the  loss  of  the  exemption. 
I  need  not  quote  examples  of  either  class  of  narrative. 
What  I  wish  to  do  is  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  by 
primitive  man  death  is  felt  to  be  inconsistent  with  the 


IMMORTALITY  47 

scheme  of  things.  First,  therefore,  he  denies  that 
it  can  come  in  the  course  of  nature,  though  he  admits 
that  it  may  be  procured  by  the  wicked  man  in  the 
way  of  murder  or  magic.  And  it  is  at  this  stage  that 
his  hope  of  reunion  with  those  loved  and  lost  scarcely 
stretches  beyond  the  prospect  of  their  return  to  this 
world.  Evidence  of  this  stage  is  found  partly  in  tales 
such  as  those  told  of  the  mother  who  returns  to  revisit 
her  child,  or  of  persons  restored  to  life.  Stories  of 
this  latter  kind  come  from  Tasmania,  Australia,  and 
Samoa,  amongst  other  places,  and  are  found  amongst 
the  Eskimo  and  American  Indians,  as  well  as 
amongst  the  Fjorts  ( J.  A.  MacCullough,  The  Child- 
hood of  Fiction,  ch.  JV).  Even  more  direct  evi- 
dence of  the  emotion  which  prompts  these  stories  is 
afforded  by  the  Ho  dirge,  quoted  by  Professor  Tylor 
(P.  C,  II,  32,33):- 

"We  never  scolded  you;  never  wronged  you; 

Come  to  us  back  ! 
We  ever  loved  and  cherished  you ;  and  have  lived  long  together 

Under  the  same  roof; 

Desert  it  not  now ! 
The  rainy  nights  and  the  cold  blowing  days  are  coming  on; 

Do  not  wander  here ! 

Do  not  stand  by  the  burnt  ashes ;  come  to  us  again ! 
You  cannot  find  shelter  under  the  peepul,  when  the  rain  comes 
down, 


48  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

The  saul  will  not  shield  you  from  the  cold  bitter  wind. 

Come  to  your  home ! 
It  is  swept  for  you  and  clean ;  and  we  are  there  who  loved  you 

ever; 
And  there  is  rice  put  for  you  and  water ; 

Come  home,  come  home,  come  to  us  again !  " 

In  these  verses  it  is  evident  that  the  death  of  the 
body  is  recognised  as  a  fact.  It  is  even  more  mani- 
fest that  the  death  of  the  body  is  put  aside  as  weigh- 
ing for  naught  against  the  absolute  conviction  that 
the  loved  one  still  exists.  But  reunion  is  sought  in 
this  world;  another  world  is  not  yet  thought  of. 
{  The  next  world  has  not  yet  been  called  into  existence 
to  redress  the  sorrows  and  the  sufferings  of  this  life. 
Where  the  discovery  of  that  solution  has  not  been 
made,  the  human  mind  seeks  such  consolation  as 
may  be  found  elsewhere.  If  the  aspiration,  "come 
to  us,  come  to  us  again,"  can  find  no  other  realisation, 
it  welcomes  the  reappearance  of  the  lost  one  in  an- 
other form.  In  Australia,  amongst  the  Euahlayi  tribe, 
the  mother  who  has  lost  her  baby  or  her  young  child 
may  yet  believe  that  it  is  restored  to  her  and  born 
again  in  the  form  of  another  child.  In  West  Africa, 
according  to  Miss  Kingsley,  "the  new  babies  as  they 
arrived  in  the  family  were  shown  a  selection  of  small 
articles  belonging  to  deceased  members  whose  souls 


IMMORTALITY  49 

were  still  absent,  —  the  thing  the  child  caught  hold 
of  identified  him.  'Why,  he's  Uncle  John;  see! 
he  knows  his  own  pipe;'  or  'That's  Cousin  Emma; 
see !  she  knows  her  market  calabash; J  and  so  on." 
But  it  is  not  only  amongst  Australian  black  fellows 
or  West  African  negroes  that  the  attempt  is  made 
to  extract  consolation  for  death  from  the  speculation 
that  we  die  only  to  be  reborn  in  this  world.  The 
theory  of  rebirth  is  put  forward  by  a  distinguished 
student  of  Hegel  —  Dr.  McTaggart  —  in  a  work 
entitled  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion.  It  is  admitted 
by  Dr.  McTaggart  to  be  true  that  we  have  no  memory 
whatever  of  our  previous  stages  of  existence ;  but  he 
declares,  "we  may  say  that,  in  spite  of  the  loss  of 
memory,  it  is  the  same  person  who  lives  in  the  suc- 
cessive lives"  (p.  130);  and  he  appears  to  find  the 
same  consolation  as  his  remote  forefathers  did  in 
looking  forward  to  a  future  stage  of  existence  in 
which  he  will  have  no  more  memory  of  his  present 
existence,  and  no  more  reason  to  believe  in  it,  than 
he  now  has  memory  of,  or  reason  to  believe  in,  his 
preexistence.  "It  is  certain,"  he  says,  "that  in 
this  life  we  remember  no  previous  lives,"  and  he 
accepts  the  position  that  it  is  equally  certain  we  shall 
have  in  our  next  life  absolutely  no  memory  of  our 


5O  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

present  existence.  That,  of  course,  distinguishes 
Dr.  McTaggart  from  the  West  African  Uncle  John 
who,  when  he  is  reborn,  at  any  rate  "  knows  his  own 
pipe." 

The  human  mind,  as  I  have  said,  seeks  such  con- 
solation as  it  may  find  in  the  doctrine  of  rebirth. 
It  finds  evidence  of  rebirth  either  in  the  behaviour 
of  the  new-born  child  or  in  its  resemblance  to  de- 
ceased relations.  But  it  also  comes  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  reincarnation  may  be  in  animal  form. 
Whether  that  conclusion  is  suggested  by  the  strangely 
human  expression  in  the  eyes  of  some  animals,  or 
whether  it  is  based  upon  the  belief  in  the  power  of 
transformation,  need  not  be  discussed.  It  is  be- 
yond doubt  that  transformation  is  believed  in :  the 
Cherokee  Indian  sings  a  verse  to  the  effect  that  he  be- 
comes a  real  wolf;  and  "after  stating  that  he  has 
become  a  real  wolf,  the  songster  utters  a  prolonged 
howl,  and  paws  the  ground  like  a  wolf  with  his  feet" 
(Frazer,  Kingship,  p.  71).  Indeed,  identity  may  be 
attained  or  manifested  without  any  process  of  trans- 
formation;  in  Australia,  amongst  the  Dieri  tribe, 
the  head  man  of  a  totem  consisting  of  a  particular 
sort  of  a  seed  is  spoken  of  by  his  people  as  being  the 
plant  itself  which  yields  the  seed  (ib.,  p.  109). 


IMMORTALITY  5 1 

Where  such  beliefs  are  prevalent,  the  doctrine  of  the 
reincarnation  of  the  soul  in  animal  form  will  obvi- 
ously arise  at  the  stage  of  evolution  which  we  are 
now  discussing,  that  is  to  say  when  the  soul  is  not 
yet  supposed  to  depart  to  another  world,  and  must 
therefore  manifest  itself  in  this  world  in  one  way 
or  another,  if  not  in  human  shape,  then  in  animal 
form.  In  the  form  of  what  animal  the  deceased  will 
be  reincarnated  is  a  question  which  will  be  an- 
swered in  different  ways.  Purely  fortuitous  circum- 
stances may  lead  to  particular  animals  being  con- 
sidered to  be  the  reincarnation  of  the  deceased. 
Or  the  fact  that  the  deceased  has  a  particular  ani- 
mal for  totem  may  lead  the  survivors  to  expect  his 
reappearance  in  the  form  of  that  particular  animal. 
The  one  fact  of  importance  for  our  present  purpose 
is  that  at  its  origin  the  belief  in  animal  reincarnation 
had  no  necessary  connection  with  the  theory  of 
future  punishments  and  rewards.  At  the  stage  of 
evolution  in  which  the  belief  in  transmigration  arose 
many  animals  were  the  object  of  genuine  respect 
because  of  the  virtues  of  courage,  etc.,  which  were 
manifested  by  them ;  or  because  of  the  position  they 
occupied  as  totems.  Consequently  no  loss  of  status 
was  involved  when  the  soul  transmigrated  from  a 


52  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

human  to  an  animal  form.     No  notion  of  punish- 
ment was  involved  in  the  belief. 

The  doctrines  of  reincarnation  and  transmigration 
belong  to  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of  belief,  or  to  a 
system  of  thought,  in  which  the  conviction  that  the 
death  of  the  body  does  not  entail  the  destruction  of 
the  soul  is  undoubted,  but  from  which  the  concep- 
tion, indeed  the  very  idea,  of  another  world  than  this 
is  excluded.  That  conception  begins  to  manifest 
itself  where  ancestor  worship  establishes  itself ;  but 
the  manifestation  is  incomplete.  Deceased  chief- 
tains and  heroes,  who  have  been  benefactors  to  the 
tribe,  are  remembered;  and  the  good  they  did  is 
remembered  also.  They  are  themselves  remembered 
as  the  doers  of  good ;  and  their  spirits  are  naturally 
conceived  as  continuing  to  be  benevolent,  or  ready 
to  confer  benefits  when  properly  approached.  But 
thus  envisaged,  they  are  seen  rather  in  their  rela- 
tion to  the  living  than  in  their  relation  to  each  other. 
It  is  their  assistance  in  this  world  that  is  sought; 
their  condition  in  the  next  world  is  of  less  practical 
importance  and  therefore  provokes  less  of  speculation, 
in  the  first  instance.  But  when  speculation  is 
provoked,  it  proves  ultimately  fatal  to  ancestor  wor- 
ship. 


IMMORTALITY  53 

First,  it  may  lead  to  the  question  of  the  relation 
of  the  spirits  of  the  deceased  benefactors  to  the  god 
or  gods  of  the  community.  There  will  be  a  tendency 
to  blur  the  distinction  between  the  god  and  his 
worshippers,  if  any  of  the  worshippers  come  to  be 
regarded  as  being  after  death  spirits  from  whom 
aid  may  be  invoked  and  to  whom  offerings  must 
be  made.  And  if  the  distinction  ceases  after  death, 
it  is  difficult  and  sometimes  impossible  to  maintain 
it  during  life ;  an  emperor  who  is  to  be  deified  after 
death  may  find  his  deification  beginning  before  his 
death.  Belief  in  such  deification  may  be  accepted 
by  some  members  of  the  community.  Others 
will  regard  it  as  proof  that  religion  is  naught;  and 
yet  others  will  be  driven  to  seek  for  a  form  of  religion 
which  affords  no  place  for  such  deifications,  but  main- 
tains explicitly  that  distinction  between  a  god  and 
his  worshippers  which  is  present  in  the  most  rudi- 
mentary forms  of  religion. 

But  though  the  tendency  of  ancestor  worship 
is  to  run  this  course  and  to  pass  in  this  way  out  of 
the  evolution  of  religion,  it  may  be  arrested  at  the 
very  outset,  if  the  religious  spirit  is,  as  it  has  been 
in  one  case  at  least,  strong  enough  to  stand  against 
it  at  the  beginning.  Thus,  amongst  the  Jews  there 


54  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

was  a  tendency  to  ancestor  worship,  as  is  shown 
by  the  fact  of  its  prohibition.  But  it  was  stamped 
out ;  and  it  was  stamped  out  so  effectually  that  belief 
in  the  continued  existence  of  the  soul  after  death 
ceased  for  long  to  have  any  practical  influence^ 
"Generally  speaking,  the  Hebrews  regarded  the 
grave  as  the  final  end  of  all  sentient  and  intelligent 
existence,  'the  land  where  all  things  are  forgotten'" 
(Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  s.v.  Sheol).  "In 
death,"  the  Psalmist  says  to  the  Lord,  "there  is  no 
remembrance  of  thee :  in  Sheol  who  shall  give  thee 
thanks?"  "Shall  they  that  are  deceased  arise  and 
praise  thee?  Shall  thy  loving-kindness  be  declared 
in  the  grave?"  or  "thy  righteousness  in  the  land  of 
forgetfulness?"  Thus  the  Sheol  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment remains  to  testify  to  the  view  taken  of  the  state 
of  the  dead  by  a  people  amongst  whom  the  worship 
of  ancestors  was  arrested  at  the  outset.  Amongst 
such  a  people  the  dead  are  supposed  simply  to  con- 
tinue in  the  next  world  as  they  left  this:  "in  Sheol 
the  kings  of  the  nations  have  their  thrones,  and  the 
mighty  their  weapons  of  war,"  just  as  in  Virgil 
the  ghost  of  Deiphobus  still  shows  the  ghastly 
wounds  by  which  he  perished  (Jevons,  History  of 
Religion,  p.  301). 


IMMORTALITY  55 

This  continuation  theory,  the  view  that  the  dead 
continue  in  the  next  world  as  they  left  this,  means 
that,  to  the  people  who  entertain  it,  the  dead  are  f^c 
merely  a  memory.  It  is  forbidden  to  think  of  them 
as  doing  anything,  as  affecting  the  living  in  any  way. 
They  are  conceived  as  powerless  to  gratify  the  wishes 
of  the  living,  or  to  thwart  them.  Where  the  Lord 
God  is  a  jealous  God,  religion  cannot  tolerate  the 
idea  that  any  other  spirit  should  be  conceived  as 
usurping  His  functions,  still  less  that  such  spirits 
should  receive  the  offerings  and  the  prayers  which 
are  the  due  of  Him  alone.  But  though  the  dead  are 
thus  reduced  to  a  mere  memory,  the  memory  itself 
does  not  and  cannot  die.  Accordingly  the  dead, 
or  rather  those  whose  bodies  are  dead,  continue  to 
live.  But,  as  they  exercise  no  action  in,  or  control 
over,  the  world  of  the  living,  their  place  of  abode 
comes  to  be  regarded  as  another  world,  to  which 
they  are  confined.  Speculation,  therefore,  where  . 
speculation  is  made,  as  to  the  case  of  the  inhabitants  / 
of  this  other  world,  must  take  the  direction  of  en- ' 
quiring  as  to  their  fate.  Where  speculation  is  not 
made,  the  dead  are  conceived  merely  to  continue  to 
be  as  they  are  remembered  to  have  been  in  this 
life.  But,  if  there  is  to  be  room  for  any  speculation 


56  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

at  all,  there  must  be  assumed  to  be  some  diversity 
in  their  fate,  and  therefore  some  reason,  intelligible 
to  man,  for  that  diversity.  That  is  a  conclusion  to 
which  tribes  attain  who  have  apparently  gone  through 
no  period  of  ancestor  worship,  —  indeed,  ancestor 
worship  only  impedes  or  defers  the  attainment  of 
that  conclusion.  The  diversity  of  fate  could  only 
consist  in  the  difference  between  being  where  you 
would  be  and  being  where  you  would  not.  But 
the  reasons  for  that  diversity  may  be  very  different 
amongst  different  peoples.  First,  where  religion 
is  at  its  lowest  or  is  in  its  least  developed  form,  the 
gods  are  not  the  cause  of  the  diversity  nor  do  they 
seem  concerned  in  it.  Such  diversity  as  there  is 
seems  in  its  simplest  form  merely  to  be  a  continuance 
/  of  the  social  distinctions  which  prevail  among  the 
living :  the  high  chieftains  rest  in  a  calm,  plenteous, 
sunny  land  in  the  sky;  while  "all  Indians  of  low 
degree  go  deep  down  under  the  earth  to  the  land  of 
Chay-her,  with  its  poor  houses  and  no  salmon  and 
no  deer,  and  blankets  so  small  and  thin,  that  when 
the  dead  are  buried  the  friends  often  bury  blankets 
with  them"  (Tylor,  P.  C.,  II,  85).  Elsewhere,  it 
is  not  social  distinctions,  but  jnpral,  that  make  the 
difference:  "the  rude  Tupinambas  of  Brazil  think 


IMMORTALITY  57 

the  souls  of  such  as  had  lived  virtuously,  that  is  to 
say  who  have  well  avenged  themselves  and  eaten 
many  of  their  enemies,"  (ib.)  rejoin  the  souls  of  their 
fathers  in  the  happy  land,  while  the  cowards  go 
to  the  other  place.  Thus,  though  the  distinctions 
in  the  next  world  do  not  seem  originally  to  have 
sprung  from  or  to  have  been  connected  with  morality, 
and  still  less  with  religion,  they  are,  or  may  be  at 
a  very  early  period,  seized  upon  by  the  moral  con- 
sciousness as  containing  truth  or  implying  it,  when 
rightly  understood.  Truth  indeed  of  the  highest 
import  for  morality  is  implied  in  the  distinctions 
thus  essayed  to  be  drawn.  But  before  the  truth 
implicit  could  be  made  explicit,  it  was  necessary 
that  the  distinctions  should  be  recognised  to  have 
their  basis  in  religion.  And  that  was  impossible 
where  religion  was  at  its  lowest  or  in  its  least  de- 
veloped form. 

From  the  fact  that  on  the  one  hand  the  conception 
of  a  future  life  in  another  world,  when  it  arose 
amongst  people  in  a  low  stage  of  religious  develop- 
ment, bore  but  little  moral  and  no  religious  fruit; 
and  on  the  other,  where  it  did  yield  fruit,  there  had 
been  a  previous  period  when  religion  closed  its 
eyes  as  far  as  possible  to  the  condition  of  the  dead 


58  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

in  Hades  or  in  Sheol,  —  we  may  draw  the  inference 
that  the  conception  of  the  future  state  formed  by  such 
people,  as  "the  rude  Tupinambas  of  Brazil"  had 
to  be  sterilised,  so  to  speak,  —  to  be  purified  from 
associations  dangerous  both  to  morality  and  reli- 
gion. We  may  fairly  say  that  as  a  matter  of  fact 
that  was  the  consequence  which  actually  happened, 
and  that  both  in  Greece  and  Judaea  the  prospect  of  a 
future  life  at  one  time  became  practically  a  tabula 
rasa  on  which  might  be  written  a  fairer  message  of 
hope  than  had  ever  been  given  before.  In  Greece 
the  message  was  written,  indeed,  and  was  received 
with  hope  by  the  thousands  who  joined  in  the  cele- 
bration of  the  mysteries.  But  the  characters  in 
which  it  was  written  faded  soon.  The  message 
was  found  to  reveal  nothing.  It  revealed  nothing 
because  it  demanded  nothing.  It  demanded  neither 
a  higher  life  nor  a  higher  conception  of  the  deity. 
It  did  not  set  forth  a  new  and  nobler  morality ;  and 
it  accommodated  itself  to  the  existing  polytheism. 
What  it  did  do  was  to  familiarise  the  Hellenic  world 
with  the  conviction  that  there  was  a  life  hereafter, 
better  than  this  life;  and  that  the  condition  of  its 
attainment  was  communion  with  the  true  God, 
peradventure  He  could  be  found.  It  was  by  this 


IMMORTALITY  59 

conviction  and  this  expectation  that  the  ground  was 
prepared,  wherever  Hellenism  existed,  for  the  mes- 
sage that  was  to  come  from  Israel. 

From  the  beginning,  or  let  us  say  in  the  lowest 
forms  in  which  religion  manifests  itself,  religion  is 
the  bond  in  which  the  worshippers  are  united  with 
one  another  and  with  their  God.  The  community 
which  is  thus  united  is  at  first  the  earliest  form  of 
society,  whatever  that  form  may  have  been,  in  which 
men  dwell  together  for  their  common  purposes. 
It  is  the  fact  that  its  members  have  common  pur- 
poses and  common  interests  which  constitute  them 
a  community;  and  amongst  the  common  interests 
without  which  there  could  be  no  community  is 
that  of  common  worship :  knowledge  of  the  sacra, 
being  confined  to  the  members  of  the  community, 
is  the  test  by  which  members  are  known,  outsiders 
excluded,  and  the  existence  of  the  community  as 
a  community  secured.  At  this  stage,  in  a  large 
number  of  societies  —  negro,  Malayo-Polynesian, 
North  American  Indians,  Eskimo,  Australians  — 
the  belief  in  reincarnation  takes  a  form  in  which  the 
presence  of  souls  of  the  departed  is  recognised  as 
necessary  to  the  very  conception  of  the  community. 
Thus  in  Alaska,  among  the  Unalits  of  St.  Michael's 


60  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Bay,  a  festival  of  the  dead  is  observed,  the  equiva- 
lent of  which  appears  to  be  found  amongst  all 
the  Eskimo.  M.  Mauss  (UAnnee  Sociologique,  IX, 
99)  thus  describes  it:  "It  comprises  two  essential 
parts.  It  begins  with  praying  the  souls  of  the  dead 
graciously  to  consent  to  reincarnate  themselves 
for  the  moment  in  the  namesake  which  each  de- 
ceased person  has;  for  the  custom  is  that  in  each 
station  the  child  last  born  always  takes  the  name 
of  the  last  person  who  has  died.  Then  these  living 
representatives  of  the  deceased  receive  presents, 
and  having  received  them  the  ^  souls  are  dismissed 
from  the  abodes  of  the  living  to  return  to  the  land 
of  the  dead.  Thus  at  this  festival  not  only  does 
the  group  regain  its  unity,  but  the  rite  "reconstitutes 
the  ideal  group  which  consists  of  all  the  generations 
which  have  succeeded  one  another  from  the  earliest 
times.  Mythical  and  historic  ancestors  as  well  as 
later  ones  thus  mingle  with  the  living,  and  com- 
munion between  them  is  conducted  by  means  of 
the  exchange  of  presents."  Amongst  people  other 
than  the  Eskimo,  a  new-born  child  not  only  takes 
the  name  of  the  last  member  of  the  family  or  clan 
who  has  died,  but  is  regarded  as  the  reincarnation  of 
the  deceased.  "Thus  the  number  of  individuals, 


IMMORTALITY  6 1 

of  names,  of  souls,  of  social  functions  in  the  clan  is 
limited ;  and  the  life  of  the  clan  consists  in  the  death 
and  rebirth  of  individuals  who  are  always  identically 
the  same"  (I.e.  267). 

The  line  of  evolution  thus  followed  by  the  belief 
in  reincarnation  results  in  the  total  separation  of  the 
belief  from  morality  and  from  religion,  and  results 
in  rendering  it  infertile  alike  for  morality,  religion, 
and  progress  in  civilisation  generally.  Where  the 
belief  in  reincarnation  takes  the  form  of  belief  in 
the  transmigration  of  the  soul  into  some  animal 
form,  it  may  be  utilised  for  moral  purposes,  provided 
that  the  people  amongst  whom  the  belief  obtains 
have  otherwise  advanced  so  far  as  to  see  that  the 
punishments  and  rewards  which  are  essential  to  the 
development  of  morality  are  by  no  means  always 
realised  in  this  life.  When  that  conviction  has 
established  itself,  the  reincarnation  theory  will 
provide  machinery  by  which  the  belief  in  future 
punishments  and  rewards  can  be  conceived  as 
operative:  rebirth  in  animal  form,  if  the  belief  in 
it  already  exists,  may  be  held  out  as  a  deterrent  to 
wrongdoing.  That  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  use 
to  which  the  belief  has  been  put  by  Buddhism.  The 
form  and  station  in  which  the  deceased  will  be  re- 


62  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

born  is  no  longer,  as  amongst  the  peoples  just  men- 
tioned, conceived  to  be  determined  automatically, 
so  to  speak,  but  is  supposed  to  depend  on  the  moral 
qualities  exhibited  during  life.  If  this  view  of  the 
future  life  has  struck  deeper  root  and  has  spread 
over  a  greater  surface  than  the  doctrine  taught  in 
the  Greek  mysteries  ever  did,  the  reason  may  prob- 
ably be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Greek  mysteries 
had  no  higher  morality  to  teach  than  was  already 
recognised,  whilst  the  moral  teaching  of  the  Buddha 
was  far  more  exalted  and  far  more  profoundly  true 
than  anything  that  had  been  preached  in  India 
before.  If  a  moral  system  by  itself,  on  its  own 
merits,  were  capable  of  affording  a  sure  foundation 
for  religion,  Buddhism  would  be  built  upon  a  rock. 
To  the  spiritual  community  by  which  man  may  be 
united  to  his  fellow-man  and  to  his  God,  morality 
,jis  essential  and  indispensable.  But  the  moral  life 
|  derives  its  value  solely  from  the  fact  that  on  it 
j  depends,  and  by  means  of  it  is  realised,  that  com- 
munion of  man  with  God  after  which  man  has  from 
the  beginning  striven.  If  then  that  communion  and 
the  very  possibility  of  that  communion  is  denied, 
the  denial  must  prove  fatal  alike  to  religion  and  to 
morality.  Now,  that  is  the  denial  which  Buddhism 


IMMORTALITY  63 

makes.  But  the  fact  of  the  denial  is  obscured  to 
those  who  believe,  and  to  those  who  would  like  to 
believe,  in  Buddhism,  by  the  way  in  which  it  is  made. 
It  is  made  in  such  a  way  that  it  appears  and  is  < 
believed  to  be  an  affirmation  instead  of  a  denial. 
Communion  with  God  is  declared  to  be  the  final  end 
to  which  the  transmigration  of  souls  conducts.  But 
the  communion  to  which  it  leads  is  so  intimate  that 
the  human  soul,  the  individual,  ceases  to  be.  Ob- 
viously, therefore,  if  it  ceases  to  be,  the  communion 
also  must  cease;  there  is  no  real  communion  sub- 
sisting between  two  spirits,  the  human  and  the  divine, 
for  two  spirits  do  not  exist,  but  only  one.  If  this 
way  of  stating  the  case  be  looked  upon  with  sus- 
picion as  possibly  not  doing  justice  to  the  teaching 
of  Buddhism,  or  as  pressing  unduly  far  the  union 
between  the  human  and  the  divine  which  is  the 
ultimate  goal  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  the 
reply  is  that  in  truth  the  case  against  Buddhism 
is  stronger  than  appears  from  this  mode  of  stating 
it.  To  say  that  from  the  Buddhist  point  of  view 
the  human  soul,  the  individual,  eventually  ceases  to 
be,  is  indeed  an  incorrect  way  of  putting  the  matter. 
It  implies  that  the  human  soul,  the  individual,  now 
is;  and  hereafter  ceases  to  be.  But  so  far  from 

;VX 

OF  THE  \ 

i    UNIVERSITY   ] 
OF  / 

-IFOR- 


64  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

admitting  that  the  individual  now  is,  the  Buddhist 
doctrine  is  that  the  existence  of  the  soul,  now,  is 
mere  illusion,  m&y&.  It  is  therefore  logical  enough, 
and  at  any  rate  self-consistent,  to  say  that  hereafter, 
when  the  series  of  transmigrations  is  complete,  the 
individual  will  not  indeed  cease  to  be,  for  he  never 
was,  but  the  illusion  that  he  existed  will  be  dissipated. 
Logically  again,  it  follows  from  this  that  if  the  exist- 
ence of  the  individual  soul  is  an  illusion  from  the 
beginning,  then  there  can  strictly  speaking  be  no 
transmigration  of  souls,  for  there  is  no  soul  to  trans- 
migrate. But  with  perfect  self-consistency  Buddh- 
ism accepts  this  position :  what  is  transmitted  from  \l 
one  being  to  the  next  in  the  chain  of  existences  is  J 
not  the  individuality  or  the  soul,  but  the  character.  /( 
Professor  Rhys  Davids  says  (Hibbert  Lectures,  pp. 
91,  92):  "I  have  no  hesitation  in  maintaining 
that  Gotama  did  not  teach  the  transmigration  of 
souls.  What  he  did  teach  would  be  better  sum- 
marized, if  we  wish  to  retain  the  word  transmigra- 
tion, as  the  transmigration  of  character.  But 
it  would  be  more  accurate  to  drop  the  word  trans- 
migration altogether  when  speaking  of  Buddhism, 
and  to  call  its  doctrine  the  doctrine  of  karma. 
Gotama  held  that  after  the  death  of  any  being, 


IMMORTALITY  65 

whether  human  or  not,  there  survived  nothing  at 
all  but  that  being's  'karma,'  the  result,  that  is,  of 
its  mental  and  bodily  actions."  "He  discarded  the 
theory  of  the  presence,  within  each  human  body, 
of  a  soul  which  could  have  a  separate  and  eternal 
existence.  He  therefore  established  a  new  identity 
between  the  individuals  in  the  chain  of  existence, 
which  he,  like  his  forerunners,  acknowledged,  by 
the  new  assertion  that  that  which  made  two  beings 
to  be  the  same  being  was  —  not  soul,  but  —  karma" 
(ib.j  pp.  93,  94).  Thus  once  more  it  appears  that 
there  can  be  no  eventual  communion  between 
the  human  soul,  at  the  end  of  its  chain  of  existence, 
and  the  divine,  for  the  reason,  not  that  the  human 
soul  ultimately  ceases  to  be,  but  that  it  never  is  or 
was,  and  therefore  neither  transmigrates  from  one 
body  to  another,  nor  is  eventually  absorbed  in  the 
dtm&n. 

Logically  consistent  though  this  train  of  argu- 
ment be,  it  leaves  unanswered  the  simple  question, 
How  can  the  result  of  my  actions  have  any  interest  f 
for  me  —  not  hereafter,  but  at  the  present  moment  — 
if  I  not  only  shall  not  exist  hereafter  but  do  not  exist 
at  the  present  moment  ?  It  is  not  impossible  for  a 
man  who  believes  that  his  existence  will  absolutely 


66  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

cease  at  death  to  take  some  interest  in  and  labour 
for  the  good  of  others  who  will  come  after  him; 
but  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  who  does  not  exist 
now  to  believe  in  anything  whatever.  And  it  is 
on  that  fundamental  absurdity  that  Buddhism  is 
built :  it  is  directed  to  the  conversion  of  those  who 
do  not  exist  to  be  converted,  and  it  is  directed  to  the 
object  of  relieving  from  existence  those  who  have 
no  existence  from  which  to  be  relieved. 

Where  then  lies  the  strength  of  Buddhism,  if  as 
a  logical  structure  it  is  rent  from  top  to  bottom  by 
glaring  inconsistency?  It  lies  in  its  appeal  to  the 
spirit  of  self-sacrifice.  What  it  denounces,  from 
beginning  to  end,  is  the  will  to  live.  The  reason 
why  it  denounces  the  will  to  live  is  that  that  will 
manifests  itself  exclusively  in  the  desires  of  the  indi- 
vidual; and  it  is  to  the  desires  of  man  that  all  the 
misery  in  the  world  are  directly  due.  Destroy  those 
desires  by  annihilating  the  will  to  live  —  and  in  no 
other  way  can  they  be  destroyed  —  and  the  misery 
of  the  world  will  cease.  The  only  termination  to 
the  misery  of  the  world  which  Buddhism  can  imagine 
is  the  voluntary  cessation  of  life  which  will  ultimately 
ensue  on  the  cessation  of  the  will  to  live.  And 
the  means  by  which  that  is  to  be  brought  about  is 


IMMORTALITY  67 

the  uprooting  and  destruction  of  the  self -regarding 
desires  by  means  of  the  higher  morality  of  self-sac- 
rifice. What  the  Buddhist  overlooks  is  that  the 
uprooting  and  destruction  of  the  self-regarding 
desires  results,  not  in  the  annihilation,  but  in  the 
purification  and  enhanced  vitality,  of  the  self  that 
uproots  them.  The  outcome  of  the  unselfish  and 
self-sacrificing  life  is  not  the  destruction  of  individ- 
uality, but  its  highest  realisation.  Now,  it  is  only  in 
society  and  by  living  for  others  that  this  unselfishness 
and  self-sacrifice  can  be  carried  out ;  man  can  only 
exist  and  unselfishness  can  only  operate  in  society, 
and  society  means  the  communion  of  man  with  his 
fellows.  It  is  true  that  only  in  society  can  self- 
ishness exist;  but  it  is  recognized  from  the  begin- 
ning as  that  which  is  destructive  of  society,  and  it 
is  therefore  condemned  alike  by  the  morality  and  the 
religion  of  the  society.  The  communion  of  man  with 
his  fellows  and  his  God  is  hindered,  impeded,  and 
blocked  wholly  and  solely  by  his  self -regarding  de- 
sires ;  it  is  furthered  and  realised  solely  by  his  unselfish 
desires.  But  his  unselfish  desires  involve  and  imply 
his  existence  —  I  was  going  to  say,  just  as  much,  I 
mean  —  far  more  than  his  selfish  desires,  for  they 
imply,  and  are  only  possible  on,  the  assumption  of 


68  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

the  existence  of  his  fellow-man,  and  of  his  com- 
munion with  him.  Nay !  more,  by  the  testimony 
of  Buddhism  itself  as  well  as  of  the  religious  ex- 
perience of  mankind  at  large,  the  unselfish  desires, 
the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  require  both  for  their 
logical  and  their  emotional  justification,  still  more 
for  their  practical  operation,  the  faith  that  by  means 
of  them  the  will  of  God  is  carried  out,  and  that  in 
them  man  shows  likest  God.  It  is  in  them  and  by 
them  that  the  communion  of  man  with  his  fellow- 
man  and  with  his  God  is  realised.  It  is  the  faith 
that  such  communion,  though  it  may  be  interrupted, 
can  never  be  entirely  broken  which  manifests  itself 
in  the  belief  in  immortality.  That  belief  may  take 
shape  in  the  idea  that  the  souls  of  the  departed 
revisit  this  earth  temporarily  in  ghostly  form,  or 
more  permanently  as  reincarnated  in  the  new-born 
members  of  the  tribe;  it  may  body  forth  another 
world  of  bliss  or  woe,  and  if  it  is  to  subserve  the 
purposes  of  morality,  it  must  so  do ;  nay !  more,  if 
it  is  to  subserve  the  purposes  of  morality,  it  is  into 
the  presence  of  the  Lord  that  the  soul  must  go.  But 
in  any  and  whatever  shape  the  belief  takes,  the  soul 
is  conceived  or  implied  to  be  in  communion  with 
other  spirits.  There  is  no  other  way  in  which  it  is 


IMMORTALITY  69 

possible  to  conceive  the  existence  of  a  soul;  just 
as  any  particle  of  matter,  to  be  comprehended  in  its 
full  reality,  implies  not  only  every  other  particle  of 
matter  but  the  universe  which  comprehends  them, 
so  the  existence  of  any  spirit  logically  implies  not 
only  the  existence  of  every  other  but  also  of  Him 
without  whom  no  one  of  them  could  be. 

It  is  in  this  belief  in  the  communion  of  spirits 
wherever  he  may  find  it  —  and  where  will  he  not  ? 
—  that  the  missionary  may  obtain  a  leverage  for 
his  work.  It  is  a  sure  basis  for  his  operations  be- 
cause the  desire  for  communion  is  universal;  and 
Christianity  alone,  of  the  religions'  of  the  world, 
teaches  that  self-sacrifice  is  the  way  to  life  eternal. 


MAGIC 

OF  all  the  topics  which  present  themselves  to 
the  student  of  the  science  of  religion  for  investiga- 
tion and  explanation  there  is  none  which  has  caused 
more  diversity  of  opinion,  none  which  has  produced 
more  confusion  of  thought,  than  magic.  The  fact 
is  that  the  belief  in  magic  is  condemned  alike  by 
science  and  religion,  —  by  the  one  as  essentially  ir- 
rational, and  by  the  other  as  essentially  irreligious. 
But  though  it  is  thus  condemned,  it  flourishes, 
where  it  does  flourish,  as  being  science,  though 
of  a  more  secret  kind  than  that  usually  recognised, 
or  as  being  a  more  potent  application  of  the  rites 
and  ceremonies  of  religion.  It  is  indeed  neither 
science  nor  religion;  it  hVes  by  mimicking  one 
or  other  or  both.  In  the  natural  history  of  belief 
it  owes  its  survival,  so  long  as  it  does  survive,  to 
its  "protective  colouring"  and  its  power  of  mim- 
icry. It  is,  always  and  everywhere,  an  error, — 
whether  tried  by  the  canons  of  science  or  religion ; 

70 


t        1 


MAGIC  fl 

but  it  lives,  as  error  can  only  live,  by  posing  and 
passing  itself  off  as  truth. 

If  now  the  only  persons  deceived  by  it  were  the 
persons  who  believed  in  it,  students  of  the  science 
of  religion  would  have  been  saved  from  much 
fruitless  controversy.  But  so  subtly  protective  is 
its  colouring  that  some  scientific  enquirers  have 
confidently  and  unhesitatingly  identified  it  with 
religion,  and  have  declared  that  magic  is  religion, 
and  religion  is  magic.  The  tyranny  of  that  error, 
however,  is  now  well-nigh  overpast.  It  is  erroneous, 
and  we  may  suppose  is  seen  to  be  erroneous,  in 
exactly  the  same  way  as  it  would  be  to  say  that 
science  is  magic,  and  magic  science.  The  truth 
is  that  magic  in  one  aspect  is  a  colourable  imitation 
of  science:  "in  short,"  as  Dr.  Frazer  says  (Early 
History  of  the  Kingship,  p.  38),  "magic  is  a  spuri- 
ous system  of  natural  law."  That  is,  we  must  note, 
it  is  a  system  which  is  spurious  in  our  eyes,  but 
which,  to  those  who  believed  in  it,  was  "a  statement 
of  the  rules  which  determine  the  sequence  of  events 
throughout  the  world  —  a  set  of  precepts  which 
human  beings  observe  in  order  to  compare  their 
ends"  (ib.,  p.  39). 

The  point,  then,  from  which  I  wish  to  start  is  that 


72  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

magic,  as  it  is  now  viewed  by  students  of  the  science 
of  religion,  on  the  one  hand  is  a  spurious  system 
of  natural  law  or  science,  and  on  the  other  a  spurious 
system  of  religion. 

Our  next  point  is  that  magic  could  not  be  spurious 
for  those  who  believed  in  it :  they  held  that  they  knew 
some  things  and  could  do  things  which  ordinary 
people  did  not  know  and  could  not  do ;  and,  whether 
their  knowledge  was  of  the  secrets  of  nature  or  of 
the  spirit  world,  it  was  not  in  their  eyes  spurious. 

Our  third  point  is  more  difficult  to  explain,  though 
it  will  appear  not  merely  obvious,  but  self-evident, 
if  I  succeed  in  explaining  it.  It  will  facilitate  the 
work  of  explanation,  if  you  will  for  the  moment 
suppose  —  without  considering  whether  the  sup- 
position is  true  or  not  —  that  there  was  a  time 
when  no  one  had  heard  that  there  was  such  a  thing 
as  magic.  Let  us  further  suppose  that  at  that  time 
man  had  observed  such  facts  as  that  heat  produces 
warmth,  that  the  young  of  animals  and  man  resemble 
their  parents :  in  a  word,  that  he  had  attained  more 
or  less  consciously  to  the  idea,  as  a  matter  of  ob- 
servation, that  like  produces  like,  and  as  a  matter 
of  practice  that  like  may  be  produced  by  like. 
Having  attained  to  that  practical  idea,  he  will  of 


MAGIC  73 

course  work  it  not  only  for  all  that  it  is  worth,  but 
for  more.  That  is  indeed  the  only  way  he  has  of 
finding  out  how  much  it  is  good  for ;  and  it  is  only 
repeated  failure  which  will  convince  him  that  here 
at  length  he  has  reached  the  limit,  that  in  this  par- 
ticular point  things  do  not  realise  his  expectations, 
that  in  this  instance  his  anticipation  of  nature 
has  been  "too  previous."  Until  that  fact  has  been 
hammered  into  him,  he  will  go  on  expecting  and 
believing  that  in  this  instance  also  like  will  produce 
like,  when  he  sets  it  to  work;  and  he  will  be  per- 
fectly convinced  that  he  is  employing  the  natural 
and  reasonable  means  for  attaining  his  end.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  as  we  with  our  superior 
knowledge  can  see,  in  the  first  place  those  means 
never  can  produce  the  desired  effect;  and  next, 
the  idea  that  they  can,  as  it  withers  and  before  it 
finally  falls  to  the  ground,  will  change  its  colour 
and  assume  the  hue  of  magic.  Thus  the  idea 
that  by  whistling  you  can  produce  a  wind  is 
at  first  as  natural  and  as  purely  rational  as  the 
idea  that  you  can  produce  warmth  by  means  of 
fire.  There  is  nothing  magical  in  either.  Both 
are  matter-of-fact  applications  of  the  practical  maxim 
that  like  produces  like. 


74  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION' 

That,  then,  is  the  point  which  I  have  been  wishing 
to  make,  the  third  of  the  three  points  from  which 
I  wish  to  start.  There  are  three  ways  of  looking 
at  identically  the  same  thing,  e.g.  whistling  to  pro- 
duce a  wind.  First,  we  may  regard  it,  and  I  suggest 
that  it  was  in  the  beginning  regarded,  as  an  ap- 
plication, having  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from 
any  other  application,  of  the  general  maxim  that 
like  produces  like.  The  idea  that  eating  the  flesh 
of  deer  makes  a  man  timid,  or  that  if  you  wish  to 
be  strong  and  bold  you  should  eat  tiger,  is,  in  this 
stage  of  thought,  no  more  magical  than  is  the  idea 
of  drinking  water  because  you  are  dry. 

Next,  the  idea  of  whistling  to  produce  a  wind, 
or  of  sticking  splinters  of  bone  into  a  man's  foot- 
prints in  order  to  injure  his  feet,  may  be  an  idea 
not  generally  known,  a  thing  not  commonly  done, 
a  proceeding  not  generally  approved  of.  It  is  thus 
marked  off  from  the  commonplace  actions  of 
drinking  water  to  moisten  your  parched  throat  or 
sitting  by  a  fire  to  get  warm.  When  it  is  thus 
marked  off,  it  is  regarded  as  magic :  not  every  one 
knows  how  to  do  it,  or  not  every  one  has  the  power 
to  do  it,  or  not  every  one  cares  to  do  it.  That  is 
the  second  stage,  the  heyday  of  magic. 


MAGIC  75 

The  third  and  final  stage  is  that  in  which  no 
educated  person  believes  in  it,  when,  if  a  man  thinks 
to  get  a  wind  by  whistling  he  may  whistle  for  it. 
These  three  ways  of  looking  at  identically  the  same 
thing  may  and  do  coexist.  The  idea  of  whistling 
for  a  wind  is  for  you  and  me  simply  a  mistaken  idea ; 
but  possibly  at  this  moment  there  are  sailors  act- 
ing upon  the  idea  and  to  some  of  them  it  appears  a 
perfectly  natural  thing  to  do,  while  to  others  there 
is  a  flavour  of  the  magical  about  it.  But  though 
the  three  ways  may  and  do  coexist,  it  is  obvious 
that  our  way  of  looking  at  it  is  and  must  be  the 
the  latest  of  the  three,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
an  error  must  exist  before  it  can  be  exploded.  I 
say  that  our  way  of  looking  at  it  must  be  the  latest, 
but  in  saying  so  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  this 
way  of  looking  at  it  originates  only  at  a  late  stage 
in  the  history  of  mankind.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
present  in  a  rudimentary  form  from  very  early 
times ;  and  the  proof  is  the  fact  generally  recognised 
that  magicians  amongst  the  lowest  races,  though 
they  may  believe  to  a  certain  extent  in  their  own 
magical  powers,  do  practise  a  good  deal  of  magic 
which  they  themselves  know  to  be  fraudulent. 
Progress  takes  place  when  other  people  also,  and  a 


76  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

steadily  increasing  number  of  people,  come  to  see 
that  it  is  fraudulent. 

In  the  next  place,  just  as  amongst  very  primitive 
peoples  we  see  that  some  magic  is  known  by  some 
people,  viz.  the  magicians  themselves,  to  be  fraudu- 
lent, though  other  people  believe  in  it ;  so,  amongst 
very  primitive  peoples,  we  find  beliefs  and  practices 
existing  which  have  not  yet  come  to  be  regarded 
as  magical,  though  they  are  such  as  might  come,  and 
do  elsewhere  come,  to  be  considered  pure  magic. 
Thus,  for  instance,  when  Cherokee  Indians  who 
suffer  from  rheumatism  abstain  from  eating  the 
flesh  of  the  common  grey  squirrel  "because  the 
squirrel  eats  in  a  cramped  position,  which  would 
clearly  aggravate  the  pangs  of  the  rheumatic  patient " 
(Frazer,  History  of  the  Kingship,  p.  70),  or  when 
"they  will  not  wear  the  feathers  of  the  bald-headed 
buzzard  for  fear  of  themselves  becoming  bald"  (ib.), 
they  are  simply  following  the  best  medical  advice 
of  their  day,  —  they  certainly  do  not  imagine  they 
are  practising  magic,  any  more  than  you  or  I  do 
when  we  are  following  the  prescriptions  of  our 
medical  adviser.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  quite  as 
obvious,  then,  that  the  feathers  of  the  bald-headed 
buzzard  are  infectious  as  it  is  now  that  the  clothes 


MAGIC  77 

of  a  fever  patient  are  infectious.  Neither  proposi- 
tion, to  be  accepted  as  true,  requires  us  to  believe 
in  magic:  either  might  spring  up  where  magic 
had  never  been  heard  of.  And,  if  that  is  the  case, 
it  simply  complicates  things  unnecessarily  to  talk 
of  magic  in  such  cases.  The  tendency  to  believe 
that  like  produces  like  is  not  a  consequence  of  or 
a  deduction  from  a  belief  in  magic  :  on  the  contrary, 
magic  has  its  root  or  one  of  its  roots  in  that  tendency 
of  the  human  mind.  But  though  that  tendency 
helps  to  produce  magic  amongst  other  things, 
magic  is  not  the  only  thing  which  it  produces:  it 
produces  beliefs  such  as  those  of  the  Cherokees 
just  quoted,  which  are  no  more  magical  than  the 
belief  that  fire  produces  warmth,  or  that  causa 
aequat  ejfectum,  that  an  effect  is,  when  analysed, 
indistinguishable  from  the  conditions  which  con- 
stitute it. 

To  attempt  to  define  magic  is  a  risky  thing; 
and,  instead  of  doing  so  at  once,  I  will  try  to  mark 
off  proceedings  which  are  not  magical ;  and  I  would 
venture  to  say  that  things  which  it  is  believed  any 
one  can  do,  and  felt  that  any  one  may  do,  are  not 
magical  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  have  that  belief 
and  that  feeling.  You  may  abstain  from  eating 


78  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

squirrel  or  wearing  fine  feathers  because  of  the 
consequences;  and  every  one  will  think  you  are 
showing  your  common  sense.  You  may  hang  up 
the  bones  of  animals  you  have  killed,  in  order  to 
attract  more  animals  of  the  like  kind;  and  you 
are  simply  practising  a  dodge  which  you  think 
will  be  useful.  Wives  whose  husbands  are  absent 
on  hunting  or  fighting  expeditions  may  do  or  abstain 
from  doing  things  which,  on  the  principle  that  like 
produces  like,  will  affect  their  husbands'  success; 
and  this  application  of  the  principle  may  be  as 
irrational  —  and  as  perfectly  natural  —  as  the  be- 
haviour of  the  beginner  at  billiards  whose  body 
writhes,  when  he  has  made  his  stroke,  in  excess  of 
sympathy  with  the  ball  which  just  won't  make  the 
cannon.  In  both  cases  the  principle  acted  on, — 
deliberately  in  the  one  case,  less  voluntarily  in  the 
other,  —  the  instinctive  feeling  is  that  like  produces 
like,  not  as  a  matter  of  magic  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact.  If  the  behaviour  of  the  billiard  player  is  due 
to  an  impulse  which  is  in  itself  natural  and  in  his 
case  is  not  magical,  we  may  fairly  take  the  same 
view  of  the  hunter's  wife  who  abstains  from  spin- 
ning for  fear  the  game  should  turn  and  wind  like  the 
spindle  and  the  hunter  be  unable  to  hit  it  (Frazer, 


MAGIC  79 

p.  55).  The  principle  in  both  cases  is  that  like 
produces  like.  Some  applications  of  that  principle 
are  correct;  some  are  not.  The  incorrectness  of 
the  latter  is  not  at  once  discovered:  the  belief  in 
their  case  is  erroneous,  but  is  not  known  to  be  erro- 
neous. And  unless  we  are  prepared  to  take  up  the 
position  that  magic  is  the  only  form  of  erroneous 
belief  which  is  to  be  found  amongst  primitive  men, 
we  must  endeavour  to  draw  a  line  between  those 
erroneous  beliefs  which  are  magical  and  those 
erroneous  beliefs  which  are  not.  The  line  will 
not  be  a  hard  and  fast  line,  because  a  belief  which 
originally  had  nothing  magical  about  it  may  come 
to  be  regarded  as  magical.  Indeed,  on  the  assump- 
tion that  belief  in  magic  is  an  error,  we  have  to 
enquire  how  men  come  to  fall  into  the  error.  If 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  magic,  how  did  man  come 
to  believe  that  there  was?  My  suggestion  is  that 
the  rise  of  the  belief  is  not  due  to  the  introduction 
of  a  novel  practice,  but  to  a  new  way  of  looking  at 
an  existing  practice.  It  is  due  in  the  first  instance 
to  the  fact  that  the  practice  is  regarded  with  dis- 
approval as  far  as  its  consequences  are  concerned 
and  without  regard  to  the  means  employed  to  pro- 
duce them.  Injury  to  a  member  of  the  community, 


80  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

especially  injury  which  causes  death,  is  viewed 
by  the  community  with  indignant  disapproval. 
Whether  the  death  is  produced  by  actual  blows  or 
"by  drawing  the  figure  of  a  person  and  then  stabbing 
it  or  doing  it  any  other  injury"  (Frazer,  p.  41), 
it  is  visited  with  the  condemnation  of  the  com- 
munity. And  consequently  all  such  attempts  "to 
injure  or  destroy  an  enemy  by  injuring  or  destroy- 
ing an  effigy  of  him"  («'&.),  whenever  they  are  made, 
whether  they  come  off  or  not,  are  resented  and 
disapproved  by  society.  On  the  other  hand, 
sympathetic  or  homoeopathic  magic  of  this  kind, 
when  used  by  the  hunter  or  the  fisherman  to  secure 
food,  meets  with  no  condemnation.  Both  assassin 
and  hunter  use  substantially  the  same  means  to 
effect  their  object;  but  the  disapproval  with  which 
the  community  views  the  object  of  the  assassin  is 
extended  also  to  the  means  which  he  employs. 
In  fine,  the  practice  of  using  like  to  produce  like 
comes  to  be  looked  on  with  loathing  and  with  dread 
when  it  is  employed  for  antisocial  purposes.  Any 
one  can  injure  or  destroy  his  private  enemy  by 
injuring  an  effigy  of  him,  just  as  any  one  can  injure 
or  destroy  his  enemy  by  assaulting  and  wounding 
him.  But  though  any  one  may  do  this,  it  is  felt 


MAGIC  8l 

that  no  one  ought  to  do  it.  Such  practices  are 
condemned  by  public  opinion.  Further,  as  they 
are  condemned  by  the  community,  they  are  ipso 
facto  offensive  to  the  god  of  the  community.  To 
him  only  those  prayers  can  be  offered,  and  by  him 
only  those  practices  can  be  approved,  which  are 
not  injurious  to  the  community  or  are  not  felt  by 
the  community  to  be  injurious.  That  is  the  reason 
why  such  practices  are  condemned  by  the  religious 
as  well  as  by  the  moral  feeling  of  the  community. 
And  they  are  condemned  by  religion  and  morality 
long  before  their  futility  is  exposed  by  science  or 
recognised  by  common  sense.  When  they  are 
felt  to  be  futile,  there  is  no  call  upon  religion  or 
morality  especially  to  condemn  the  practices  — 
though  the  intention  and  the  will  to  injure  our 
fellow-man  remains  offensive  both  to  morality 
and  religion.  With  the  means  adopted  for  realising 
the  will  and  carrying  out  the  intention,  morality 
and  religion  have  no  concern.  If  the  same  or 
similar  means  can  be  used  for  purposes  consistent 
with  the  common  weal,  they  do  not,  so  far  as  they 
are  used  for  such  purposes,  come  under  the  ban 
of  either  morality  or  religion.  Therein  we  have,  I 
suggest,  the  reason  of  a  certain  confusion  of  thought 


82  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

in  the  minds  of  students  of  the  science  of  religion. 
We  of  the  present  day  look  at  the  means  employed. 
We  see  the  same  means  employed  for  ends  that  are, 
and  for  ends  that  are  not,  antisocial ;  and,  inasmuch 
as  the  means  are  the  same  and  are  alike  irrational, 
we  group  them  all  together  under  the  head  of  magic. 
The  grouping  is  perfectly  correct,  inasmuch  as  the 
proceedings  grouped  together  have  the  common  at- 
tribute of  being  proceedings  which  cannot  possibly 
produce  the  effects  which  those  who  employ  them 
believe  that  they  will  and  do  produce.  But  this 
grouping  becomes  perfectly  misleading,  if  we  go 
on  to  infer,  as  is  sometimes  inferred,  that  primitive 
man  adopted  it.  First,  it  is  based  on  the  fact  that 
the  proceedings  are  uniformly  irrational  —  a  fact 
of  which  man  is  at  first  wholly  unaware ;  and  which, 
when  it  begins  to  dawn  upon  him,  presents  itself 
in  the  form  of  the  further  error  that  while  some  of 
these  proceedings  are  absurd,  others  are  not.  In 
neither  case  does  he  adopt  the  modern,  scientific 
position  that  all  are  irrational,  impossible,  absurd. 
Next,  the  modern  position  deals  only  with  the  pro- 
ceedings as  means,  —  declaring  them  all  absurd,  — 
and  overlooks  entirely  what  is  to  primitive  man  the 
point  of  fundamental  importance,  viz.  the  object 


MAGIC  83 

and  purpose  with  which  they  are  used.  Yet  it  is 
the  object  and  purpose  which  determine  the  social 
value  of  these  proceedings.  For  him,  or  in  his 
eyes,  to  class  together  the  things  which  he  approves 
of  and  the  things  of  which  he  disapproves  would 
be  monstrous:  the  means  employed  in  the  two 
cases  may  be  the  same,  but  that  is  of  no  importance 
in  face  of  the  fact  that  the  ends  aimed  at  in  the 
two  cases  are  not  merely  different  but  contradictory. 
In  the  one  case  the  object  promotes  the  common 
weal,  or  is  supposed  by  him  to  promote  it.  In  the 
other  it  is  destructive  of  the  common  weal. 

If,  therefore,  we  wish  to  avoid  confusion  of  thought, 
we  must  in  discussing  magic  constantly  bear  in 
mind  that  we  group  together  —  and  therefore  are 
in  danger  of  confusing  —  things  which  to  the  savage 
differ  toto  caelo  from  one  another.  A  step  towards 
avoiding  this  confusion  is  taken  by  Dr.  Frazer, 
when  he  distinguishes  (History  of  the  Kingship, 
p.  89)  between  private  magic  and  public  magic. 
The  distinction  is  made  still  more  emphatic  by 
Dr.  Haddon  (Magic  and  Fetichism,  p.  20)  when 
he  speaks  of  "  nefarious  magic."  The  very  same 
means  when  employed  against  the  good  of  the 
community  are  regarded,  by  morality  and  religion 


84  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

alike,  as  nefarious,  which  when  employed  for  the 
good  of  the  community  are  regarded  with  approval. 
The  very  same  illegitimate  application,  —  I  mean 
logically  illegitimate  in  our  eyes,  —  the  very  same 
application  of  the  principle  that  like  produces  like 
will  be  condemned  by  the  public  opinion  of  the 
community  when  it  is  employed  for  purposes  of 
murder  and  praised  by  public  opinion  when  it  is 
employed  to  produce  the  rain  which  the  community 
desires.  The  distinction  drawn  by  primitive  man 
between  the  two  cases  is  that,  though  any  one  can 
use  the  means  to  do  either,  no  one  ought  to  do  the 
one  which  the  community  condemns.  That  is  con- 
demned as  nefarious ;  and  because  it  is  nefarious, 
the  "witch"  may  be  "smelled  out"  by  the  "witch- 
doctor" and  destroyed  by,  or  with  the  approval  of, 
the  community. 

But  though  that  is,  I  suggest,  the  first  stage  in  the 
process  by  which  the  belief  in  magic  is  evolved,  it  is 
by  no  means  the  whole  of  the  process.  Indeed, 
it  may  fairly  be  urged  that  practices  which  any  one 
can  perform,  though  no  one  ought  to  perform,  may 
be  nefarious  (as  simple,  straightforward  murder 
is),  but  so  far  there  is  nothing  magical  about  them. 
And  I  am  prepared  to  accept  that  view.  Indeed, 


MAGIC  85 

it  is  an  essential  part  of  my  argument,  for  I  seek  to 
show  that  the  belief  in  magic  had  a  beginning  and 
was  evolved  out  of  something  that  was  not  a  belief 
in  magic,  though  it  gave  rise  to  it.  The  belief  that 
like  produces  like  can  be  entertained  where  magic 
has  not  so  much  as  been  heard  of.  And,  though 
it  may  ultimately  be  worked  out  into  the  scientific 
position  that  the  sum  of  conditions  necessary  to 
produce  an  effect  is  indistinguishable  from  the 
effect,  it  may  also  be  worked  out  on  other  lines 
into  a  belief  in  magic;  and  the  first  step  in  that 
evolution  is  taken  when  the  belief  that  like  pro- 
duces like  is  used  for  purposes  pronounced  by 
public  opinion  to  be  nefarious. 

The  next  step  is  taken  when  it  comes  to  be  be- 
lieved not  only  that  the  thing  is  nefarious  but  that 
not  every  one  can  do  it.  The  reason  why  only 
a  certain  person  can  do  it  may  be  that  he  alone 
knows  how  to  do  it  —  or  he  and  the  person  from 
whom  he  learnt  it.  The  lore  of  such  persons  when 
examined  by  folk-lore  students  is  found  generally  to 
come  under  one  or  other  of  the  two  classes  known 
as  sympathetic  and  mimetic  magic,  or  homoeo- 
pathic and  contagious  magic.  In  these  cases  it  is 
obvious  that  the  modus  operandi  is  the  same  as  it 


86  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

was  in  what  I  have  called  the  first  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  magic  and  have  already  described 
at  great  length.  What  differentiates  this  second 
stage  from  the  first  is  that  whereas  in  the  first  stage 
these  applications  of  the  principle  that  like  produces 
like  are  known  to  every  one,  though  not  practised 
by  every  one,  in  the  second  stage  these  applications 
are  not  known  to  every  one,  but  only  to  the  dealers 
in  magic.  Some  of  those  applications  of  the  prin- 
ciple may  be  applications  which  have  descended 
to  the  dealer  and  have  passed  out  of  the  general 
memory;  and  others  may  simply  be  extensions 
of  the  principle  which  have  been  invented  by  the 
dealer  or  his  teacher.  Again,  the  public  disap- 
proval of  nefarious  arts  will  tend  first  to  segregate 
the  followers  of  such  arts  from  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity; and  next  to  foster  the  notion  that  the  arts 
thus  segregated,  and  thereby  made  more  or  less 
mysterious,  include  not  only  things  which  the  or- 
dinary decent  member  of  society  would  not  do  if  he 
could,  but  also  things  which  he  could  not  do  if  he 
would.  The  mere  belief  in  the  possibility  of  such 
arts  creates  an  atmosphere  of  suspicion  in  which 
things  are  believed  because  they  are  impossible. 
When  this  stage  has  been  reached,  when  he  who 


MAGIC  87 

practises  nefarious  arts  is  reported  and  believed  to 
do  things  which  ordinary  decent  people  could  not 
do  if  they  would,  his  personality  inevitably  comes 
to  be  considered  as  a  factor  in  the  results  that  he 
produces;  he  is  credited  with  a  power  to  produce 
them  which  other  people,  that  is  to  say  ordinary 
people,  do  not  possess.  And  it  is  that  personal 
power  which  eventually  comes  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant, because  the  most  mysterious,  article  in 
his  equipment.  It  is  in  virtue  of  that  personal 
power  that  he  is  commonly  believed  to  be  able  to 
do  things  which  are  impossible  for  the  ordinary 
member  of  the  tribe. 

Thus  far  I  have  been  tracing  the  steps  of  the 
process  by  which  the  worker  of  nefarious  arts  starts 
by  employing  for  nefarious  purposes  means  which 
any  one  could  use  if  he  would,  and  ends  by  being 
credited  with  a  power  peculiar  to  himself  of  work- 
ing impossibilities.  I  now  wish  to  point  out  that  a 
process  exactly  parallel  is  simultaneously  carried 
on  by  which  arts  beneficent  to  society  are  supposed 
to  be  evolved.  Rain-making  may  be  taken  as  an 
art  socially  beneficial.  The  modus  operandi  of 
rain-making  appears  in  all  cases  to  be  based  on  the 
principle  that  like  produces  like;  and  to  be  in  its 


88  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

nature  a  process  which  any  one  can  carry  out  and 
which  requires  no  mysterious  art  to  effect  and  no 
mysterious  personal  power  to  produce.  At  the 
same  time,  as  it  is  a  proceeding  which  is  beneficial 
to  the  tribe  as  a  whole,  it  is  one  in  which  the  whole 
tribe,  and  no  one  tribesman  in  particular,  is  inter- 
ested. It  must  be  carried  out  in  the  interest  of  the 
tribe  and  by  some  one  who  in  carrying  it  out  acts 
for  the  tribe.  The  natural  representative  of  the 
tribe  is  the  head-man  of  the  tribe;  and,  though 
any  one  might  perform  the  simple  actions  necessary, 
and  could  perform  them  just  as  well  as  the  head- 
man, they  tend  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  head- 
man; and  in  any  case  the  person  who  performs 
them  performs  them  as  the  representative  of  the 
tribe.  The  natural  inference  comes  in  course  of 
time  to  be  drawn  that  he  who  alone  performs  them 
is  the  man  who  alone  can  perform  them ;  and  when 
that  inference  is  drawn  it  becomes  obvious  that  his 
personality,  or  the  power  peculiar  to  him  personally, 
is  necessary  if  rain  is  to  be  made,  and  that  the  acts 
and  ceremonies  through  which  he  goes  and  through 
which  any  one  could  go  would  not  be  efficacious, 
or  not  as  efficacious,  without  his  personal  agency 
and  mysterious  power.  Hence  the  man  who  works 


MAGIC  89 

wonders  for  his  tribe  or  in  the  interests  of  his  tribe, 
in  virtue  of  his  personal  power,  does  things  which 
are  impossible  for  the  ordinary  member  of  the  tribe. 
Up  to  this  point,  in  tracing  the  evolution  of  magic, 
we  have  not  found  it  once  necessary  to  bring  in  or 
even  to  refer  to  any  belief  in  the  existence  of  spiritual 
beings  of  any  kind.  So  far  as  the  necessities  of  the 
argument  are  concerned,  the  belief  in  magic  might 
have  originated  in  the  way  I  have  described  and 
might  have  developed  on  the  lines  suggested,  in  a 
tribe  which  had  never  so  much  as  heard  of  spirits. 
Of  course,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  every  tribe  in  which 
the  belief  in  magic  is  found  does  also  believe  in  the 
existence  of  spirits;  animism  is  a  stage  of  belief 
lower  than  which  or  back  of  which  science  does 
not  profess  to  go.  But  it  is  only  in  an  advanced 
stage  of  its  evolution  that  the  belief  in  magic  be- 
comes involved  with  the  belief  in  spirits.  Originally, 
eating  tiger  to  make  you  bold,  or  eating  saffron  to 
cure  jaundice,  was  just  as  matter  of  fact  a  proceeding 
as  drinking  water  to  moisten  your  throat  or  sitting 
by  a  fire  to  get  warm;  like  produces  like,  and  be- 
yond that  obvious  fact  it  was  not  necessary  to  go  — 
there  was  no  more  need  to  imagine  that  the  action 
of  the  saffron  was  due  to  a  spirit  than  to  imagine 


go  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

that  it  was  a  water  spirit  which  slakes  your  thirst. 
The  fact  seems  to  be  that  animism  is  a  savage 
philosophy  which  is  competent  to  explain  every- 
thing when  called  upon,  but  that  the  savage  does 
not  spend  every  moment  of  his  waking  life  in  in- 
voking it :  until  there  is  some  need  to  fall  back  upon 
it,  he  goes  on  treating  inanimate  things  as  things 
which  he  can  utilise  for  his  own  purposes  without 
reference  to  spirits.  That  is  the  attitude  also  of 
the  man  who  in  virtue  of  his  lore  or  his  personal 
power  can  produce  effects  which  the  ordinary  man 
cannot  or  will  not:  he  performs  his  ceremony  and 
the  effect  follows  —  or  will  follow  —  because  he 
knows  how  to  do  it  or  has  mysterious  personal 
power  to  produce  the  effect.  But  he  consults  no 
spirits  —  at  any  rate  in  the  first  instance.  Eventu- 
ally he  may  do  so;  and  then  magic  enters  on  a 
further  stage  in  its  evolution.  (See  Appendix.)  ' 
If  the  man  who  has  the  lore  or  the  personal 
power,  and  who  uses  it  for  nefarious  purposes,  pro- 
poses to  employ  it  on  obtaining  the  same  control 
over  spirits  as  he  has  over  things,  his  magic  reaches 
a  stage  of  evolution  in  which  it  is  difficult  and 
practically  unnecessary  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
stage  of  fetichism  in  which  the  owner  of  a  fetich 


MAGIC  QI 

applies  coercion  to  make  the  fetich  spirit  do  what 
he  wishes.  With  fetichism  I  deal  in  another  lecture. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  has  the  lore 
or  the  personal  power  and  uses  it  for  social  or  "com- 
munal" purposes  (Haddon,  p.  41)  comes  to  believe 
that,  for  the  effects  which  he  has  hitherto  sought 
to  produce  by  means  of  his  superior  knowledge  or 
superior  power,  it  is  necessary  to  invoke  the  aid 
of  spirits,  he  will  naturally  address  himself  to  the 
spirit  or  god  who  is  worshipped  by  the  community 
because  he  has  at  heart  the  general  interests  of  the 
community;  or  it  may  be  that  the  spirit  who  pro- 
duces such  a  benefit  for  the  community  at  large,  as 
rain  for  example,  will  take  his  place  among  the 
gods  of  the  community  as  the  rain-god,  in  virtue 
of  the  benefit  which  he  confers  upon  the  community 
generally.  In  either  case,  the  attitude  of  the  priest 
or  person  who  approaches  him  on  behalf  of  the 
community  will  be  that  which  befits  a  supplicant 
invoking  a  favour  from  a  power  that  has  shown 
favour  in  the  past  to  the  community.  And  it  will 
not  surprise  us  if  we  find  that  the  ceremonies  which 
were  used  for  the  purpose  of  rain-making,  before 
rain  was  recognised  as  the  gift  of  the  gods,  continue 
for  a  time  to  be  practised  as  the  proper  rites  with 


92  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

which  to  approach  the  god  of  the  community  or 
the  rain-god  in  particular.  Such  survivals  are 
then  in  danger  of  being  misinterpreted  by  students 
of  the  science  of  religion,  for  they  may  be  regarded 
as  evidence  that  religion  was  evolved  out  of  magic, 
when  in  truth  they  show  that  religion  tends  to  drive 
out  magic.  Thus  Dr.  Frazer,  in  his  Lectures  on 
the  Early  History  of  the  Kingship  (pp.  73-75), 
describes  the  practice  of  the  New  Caledonians  who, 
to  promote  the  growth  of  taro,  "bury  in  the  field 
certain  stones  resembling  taros,  praying  to  their 
ancestors  at  the  same  time,"  and  he  goes  on  to 
say:  "In  these  practices  of  the  New  Caledonians 
the  magical  efficacy  of  the  stones  appears  to  be 
deemed  insufficient  of  itself  to  accomplish  the  end 
in  view ;  it  has  to  be  reinforced  by  the  spirits  of  the 
dead,  whose  help  is  sought  by  prayer  and  sacrifice. 
Thus  in  New  Caledonia  sorcery  is  blent  with  the 
worship  of  the  dead ;  in  other  words,  magic  is  com- 
bined with  religion.  If  the  stones  ceased  to  be  em- 
ployed, and  the  prayers  and  sacrifices  to  the  ancestors 
remained,  the  transition  from  magic  to  religion 
would  be  complete."  Thus  it  seems  to  be  suggested 
in  these  words  of  Dr.  Frazer's  that  religion  may 
be  evolved  out  of  magic.  If  that  is  what  is  suggested, 


MAGIC  93 

then  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  suggestion  is  not 
borne  out  by  the  instance  given.  Let  us  concede 
for  the  moment  what  some  of  us  would  be  inclined 
to  doubt,  viz.  that  prayers  and  sacrifice  offered  to 
a  human  being,  alive  or  dead,  is  religion;  and  let 
us  enquire  whether  this  form  of  religion  is  evolved 
out  of  magic.  The  magic  here  is  quite  clear :  stones 
resembling  taros  are  buried  in  the  taro  field  to  pro- 
mote the  growth  of  taros.  That  is  an  application 
of  the  principle  that  like  produces  like  which  might 
be  employed  by  men  who  had  never  heard  of  an- 
cestor worship  or  of  any  kind  of  religion,  and  who 
had  never  uttered  prayers  or  offered  sacrifices 
of  any  kind.  Next,  the  religious  element,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Frazer,  is  also  quite  clear:  it  consists 
in  offering  sacrifices  to  the  dead  with  the  prayer 
or  the  words,  "Here  are  your  offerings,  in  order 
that  the  crop  of  yams  may  be  good."  Now,  it  is 
not  suggested,  even  by  Dr.  Frazer,  that  this  religious 
element  is  a  form  of  magic  or  is  in  any  way  developed 
out  of  or  evolved  from  magic.  On  the  contrary,  if 
this  element  is  religious  —  indeed,  whether  it  be 
really  religious  or  not  —  it  is  obviously  entirely 
distinct  and  different  from  sympathetic  or  homoeo- 
pathic magic.  The  mere  fact  that  the  magical 


94  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

rite  of  burying  in  the  taro  fields  stones  which  re- 
semble taros  has  to  be  supplemented  by  rites  which 
are,  on  Dr.  Frazer's  own  showing,  non-magical, 
\  shows  that  the  primitive  belief  in  this  application 
of  the  principle  that  like  produces  like  was  already 
dying  out,  and  was  in  process  of  becoming  a  mere 
survival.  Suppose  that  it  died  out  entirely  and 
the  rite  of  burying  stones  became  an  unintelligible 
survival,  or  was  dropped  altogether,  and  suppose 
that  the  prayers  and  sacrifices  remained  in  possession 
of  the  field,  which  would  be  the  more  correct  way 
of  stating  the  facts,  to  say  that  the  magic  had  died 
out  and  its  place  had  been  taken  by  something 
totally  different,  viz.  religion;  or  that  what  was 
magic  had  become  religion,  that  magic  and  religion 
are  but  two  manifestations,  two  stages,  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  same  principle?  The  latter  statement 
was  formally  rejected  by  Dr.  Frazer  in  the  second 
edition  of  his  Golden  Boughj  when  he  declared  that 
he  had  come  to  recognise  "a  fundamental  distinc- 
tion and  even  opposition  of  principle  between  magic 
and  religion"  (Preface,  xvi).  His  words,  therefore, 
justify  us  in  assuming  that  when  he  speaks,  in  his 
Lectures  on  the  Early  History  of  the  Kingship,  of 
the  "transition  from  magic  to  religion,"  he  cannot 


MAGIC  95 

mean  that  magic  becomes  religion,  or  that  religion 
is  evolved  out  of  magic,  for  the  "distinction  and 
even  opposition  of  principle"  between  the  two  is 
" fundamental."  He  can,  therefore,  only  mean  that 
magic  is  followed  and  may  be  driven  out  by  some- 
thing which  is  fundamentally  opposed  to  it,  viz. 
religion. 

What  then  is  the  fundamental  opposition  between 
magic  and  religion?  and  is  it  such  as  to  require  us 
to  believe  with  Dr.  Frazer  that  magic  preceded 
religion,  and  that  of  two  opposite  ideas  the  mind 
can  conceive  the  one  without  conceiving  —  and 
rejecting  —  the  other? 

The  fundamental  opposition  between  magic  and 
religion  I  take  to  be  that  religion  is  supposed  to 
promote  the  interests  of  the  community,  and  that 
magic,  so  far  forth  as  it  is  nefarious,  is  condemned 
by  the  moral  and  by  the  religious  feeling  of  the 
community.  It  is  the  ends  for  which  nefarious 
magic  is  used  that  are  condemned,  and  not  the 
means.  The  means  may  be  and,  as  we  see,  are 
silly  and  futile;  and,  for  intellectual  progress,  their 
silliness  and  futility  must  be  recognised  by  the 
intellect.  But,  it  is  only  when  they  are  used  for 
purposes  inimical  to  the  public  good  that  they  are 


96  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

condemned  by  religion  and  morality  as  nefarious. 
If  therefore  we  talk  of  a  fundamental  opposition 
between  magic  and  religion,  we  must  understand 
that  the  fundamental  opposition  is  that  between 
nefarious  magic  and  religion;  neither  religion  nor 
morality  condemns  the  desire  to  increase  the  food 
supply  or  to  promote  any  other  interest  of  the  com- 
munity. Whether  a  man  uses  skill  that  he  has 
acquired,  or  personal  power,  or  force  of  will,  matters 
not,  provided  he  uses  it  for  the  general  good.  The 
question  whether,  as  a  cold  matter  of  fact,  the  means 
he  uses  are  efficacious  is  not  one  which  moral  fervour 
or  religious  ardour  is  competent  by  itself  to  settle: 
the  cool  atmosphere  and  dry  light  of  reason  have 
rather  that  function  to  perform;  and  they  have  to 
perform  it  in  the  case  both  of  means  that  are  used 
for  the  general  good  and  of  those  used  against  it. 

I  take  it  therefore  that  what  religion  is  funda- 
mentally opposed  to  is  magic  —  or  anything  else  — 
that  is  used  for  nefarious  purposes. 

The  question  then  arises  whether  we  have  any 
reason  to  believe  that  magic  used  for  nefarious 
purposes  must  have  existed  before  religion.  Now 
by  nefarious  purposes  I  mean  purposes  incon- 
sistent with  or  destructive  of  the  common  good. 


MAGIC  97 

There  can  be  no  such  purposes,  however,  unless  and 
until  there  is  a  community,  however  small,  having 
common  interests  and  a  common  good.  As  soon  as 
there  exists  such  a  community,  there  will  be  a  dis- 
tinction between  actions  which  promote  and  actions 
which  are  destructive  of  the  common  good.  The 
one  class  will  be  approved,  the  other  disapproved, 
of  by  public  opinion.  Magic  will  be  approved 
and  disapproved  of  according  as  it  is  or  is  not  used 
in  a  way  inconsistent  with  the  public  good.  If 
there  is  a  spirit  or  a  god  who  is  worshipped  by  the 
community  because  he  is  believed  to  be  concerned 
with  the  good  of  the  community,  then  he  will  dis- 
approve of  nefarious  proceedings  whether  magical 
or  not.  But  Dr.  Frazer's  position  I  take  to  be 
that  no  such  spirit  or  god  can  come  to  be  believed 
in,  unless  there  has  been  previously  a  belief  in  magic. 
Now,  that  argument  either  is  or  is  not  based  on  the 
assumption  that  magic  and  religion  are  but  two 
manifestations,  two  stages,  in  the  evolution  of  the 
same  principle.  If  that  is  the  basis,  then  what 
manifested  itself  at  first  as  magic  subsequently 
manifests  itself  as  religion;  and  "the  transition 
from  magic  to  religion"  implies  the  priority  of 
magic  to  religion.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  Dr.  Frazer 


98  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

formally  postulates,  not  an  identity,  but  an  "op- 
position of  principle  "  between  the  two.  We  must 
therefore  reject  the  assumption  of  an  identity  of 
principle;  and  accept  the  "opposition  of  principle." 
But  if  so,  then  there  must  be  two  principles  which 
are  opposed  to  one  another,  religion  and  magic; 
and  we  might  urge  that  line  of  argument  consistently 
enough  to  show  that  there  can  be  no  magic  save 
where  there  is  religion  to  be  opposed  to  it. 

Now,  there  is  an  opposition  of  principle  between 
magic  used  for  nefarious  purposes  and  religion; 
and  the  opposition  is  that  the  one  promotes  social 
and  the  other  anti-social  purposes.  Nefarious 
purposes,  whether  worked  by  magic  or  by  other 
means,  are  condemned  by  religion  and  are  nefarious 
especially  because  offensive  to  the  god  who  has  the 
interests  of  the  community  at  heart.  That  from 
the  moment  society  existed  anti-social  tendencies 
also  manifested  themselves  will  not  be  doubted; 
and  neither  need  we  doubt  that  the  principle  that 
like  produces  like  was  employed  from  the  beginning 
for  social  as  well  as  for  anti-social  purposes.  The 
question  is  whether,  in  the  stage  of  animism,  the 
earliest  and  the  lowest  stage  which  science  recognises 
in  the  evolution  of  man,  there  is  ever  found  a  society 


MAGIC  99 

of  human  beings  which  has  not  appropriated  some 
one  or  more  of  the  spirits  by  which  all  things,  on 
the  animistic  principle,  are  worked,  to  the  purposes 
of  the  community.  No  such  society  has  yet  been 
proved  to  exist;  still  less  has  any  a  priori  proof 
been  produced  to  show  that  such  a  society  must 
have  existed.  The  presumption  indeed  is  rather 
the  other  way.  Children  go  through  a  period  of 
helpless  infancy  longer  than  the  young  of  any  other 
creatures;  and  could  not  reach  the  age  of  self-help, 
if  the  family  did  not  hold  together  for  some  years 
at  least.  But  where  there  is  a  family  there  is  a 
society,  even  if  it  be  confined  to  members  of  the 
family.  There  also,  therefore,  there  are  social  and 
anti-social  tendencies  and  purposes;  and,  in  the 
animistic  stage,  the  spirits,  by  which  man  conceives 
himself  to  be  surrounded,  are  either  hostile  or  not 
hostile  to  the  society,  and  are  accordingly  either 
worshipped  or  not  worshipped  by  it.  Doubtless, 
even  in  those  early  times,  the  father  and  the  hus- 
band conceived  himself  to  be  the  whole  family ;  and 
if  that  view  had  its  unamiable  side  —  and  it  still 
has  —  it  also  on  occasion  had  the  inestimable 
advantage  of  sinking  self,  of  self-sacrifice,  in  defence 
of  the  family. 


100  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Thus  far  I  have  been  concerned  to  show  how, 
starting  from  a  principle  such  as  that  like  produces 
like,  about  which  there  is  nothing  magical  in  the 
eyes  either  of  those  who  believe  in  magic  or  of  those 
who  have  left  the  belief  behind,  man  might  evolve 
the  conception  of  magic  as  being  the  lore  or  the 
personal  power  which  enables  a  man  to  do  what 
ordinary  people  cannot  do.  A  few  words  are  neces- 
sary as  to  the  decline  of  the  belief.  The  first  is  that 
the  belief  is  rotten  before  it  is  ripe.  Those  applica- 
tions of  the  principle  that  like  produces  like  which 
are  magical  are  generally  precisely  those  which  are 
false.  The  fact  that  they  are  false  has  not  prevented 
them  from  surviving  in  countless  numbers  to  the 
present  day.  But  some  suspicion  of  their  falsity 
in  some  cases  does  arise;  and  the  person  who  has 
the  most  frequent  opportunities  of  discovering  their 
falsity,  the  person  on  whose  notice  the  discovery  of 
their  falsity  is  thrust  most  pointedly,  is  the  person 
who  deals  habitually  and  professionally  in  magic. 
Hence,  though  it  is  his  profession  to  work  wonders, 
he  takes  care  as  far  as  may  be  not  to  attempt  im- 
possibilities. Thus  Dr.  Haddon  (I.e.,  p.  62)  found 
that  the  men  of  Murray  Island,  Torres  Straits,  who 
made  a  "big  wind"  by  magic,  only  made  it  in  the 


MAGIC  10 1 

season  of  the  southeast  trade  wind.  "On  my  ask- 
ing," he  says,  "whether  the  ceremony  was  done  in 
the  north  monsoon,  my  informant  said  emphatically, 
'Can't  do  it  in  northwest.'  That  is,  the  charm  is 
performed  only  at  that  season  of  the  year  when  the 
required  result  is  possible  —  indeed  when  it  is  of 
normal  occurrence.  In  this,  as  in  other  cases,  I 
found  that  the  impossible  was  never  attempted.  A 
rain  charm  would  not  be  made  when  there  was  no 
expectation  of  rain  coming,  or  a  southeast  wind  be 
raised  during  the  wrong  season."  The  instance 
thus  given  to  us  by  Dr.  Haddon  shows  how  the 
belief  in  magic  begins  to  give  way  before  the  scien- 
tific observation  of  fact.  The  collapse  of  magic 
becomes  complete  when  every  one  sees  that  the 
southeast  trade  wind  blows  at  its  appointed  time, 
whether  the  magic  rites  are  performed  or  not.  In 
fine,  what  kills  magic  regarded  as  a  means  for  pro- 
ducing effects  is  the  discovery  that  it  is  superfluous, 
when  for  instance  the  desired  wind  or  rain  is  coming, 
and  futile  when  it  is  not.  And  whereas  morality  and 
religion  only  condemn  the  end  aimed  at  by  magic, 
and  only  condemn  it  when  it  is  anti-social,  science 
slowly  shows  that  magic  as  a  means  to  any  end  is 
superfluous  and  silly. 


102  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Science,  however,  shows  this  but  slowly;  and  if 
we  wish  to  understand  how  it  is  that  the  belief  in 
the  magician's  power  has  survived  for  thousands  of 
years  down  to  the  present  moment  amongst  nu- 
merous peoples,  we  must  remember  that  his  equip- 
ment and  apparatus  are  not  limited  to  purely  non- 
sensical notions.  On  the  contrary,  in  his  stock  of 
knowledge,  carefully  handed  down,  are  many  truths 
and  facts  not  generally  known;  and  they  are  the 
most  efficacious  articles  of  his  stock  in  trade.  Dr. 
Frazer  may  not  go  farther  than  his  argument  requires, 
but  he  certainly  goes  farther  than  the  facts  will 
support  him,  when  he  says  (I.e.,  p.  83)  "for  it  must 
always  be  remembered  that  every  single  profession 
and  claim  put  forward  by  the  magician  as  such  is 
false;  not  one  of  them  can  be  maintained  without 
deception,  conscious  or  unconscious." 

If  now,  in  conclusion,  we  look  once  more  at  the 
subject  of  magic  and  look  at  it  from  the  practical 
point  of  view  of  the  missionary,  we  shall  see  that 
there  are  several  conclusions  which  may  be  of  use 
to  him.  In  the  first  place,  his  attitude  to  magic  will 
be  hostile,  and  in  his  hostility  to  it  he  will  find  the 
best  starting-point  for  his  campaign  against  it  to  be 
in  the  fact  that  everywhere  magic  is  felt,  to  a  greater 


MAGIC  103 

or  less  extent,  to  be  anti-social,  and  is  condemned 
both  by  the  moral  sentiments  and  the  religious 
feeling  of  the  community.  It  is  felt  to  be  essentially 
wicked;  and  in  warring  against  it  the  missionary 
will  be  championing  the  cause  of  those  who  know  it 
to  be  wrong  but  who  simply  dare  not  defy  it.  The 
fact  that  defiance  is  not  ventured  on  is  essential  to 
the  continuance  of  the  tyranny;  and  what  is  neces- 
sary, if  it  is  to  be  defied,  is  an  actual  concrete  example 
of  the  fact  that  when  defied  it  is  futile. 

Next,  where  magic  is  practised  for  social  purposes, 
where  it  mimics  science  or  religion  and  survives  in 
virtue  of  its  power  of  "protective  colouring,"  it  is  in 
fact  superfluous  and  silly;  and  where  the  natives 
themselves  are  beginning  to  recognise  that  the  magic 
which  is  supposed,  for  instance,  to  raise  the  southeast 
trade  wind  won't  act  at  the  wrong  season,  it  should 
not  be  difficult  to  get  them  to  see  that  it  is  unneces- 
sary at  the  right  season.  The  natural  process  which 
tends  thus  to  get  rid  of  magic  may  be  accelerated 
by  the  sensible  missionary;  and  some  knowledge  of 
science  will  be  found  in  this,  as  in  other  matters,  an 
indispensable  part  of  his  training. 

Finally,  the  missionary  may  rest  assured  in  the 
conviction  that  his  flank  will  not  be  turned  by  the 


104  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

science  of  religion.  The  idea  that  religion  was 
preceded  by  and  evolved  out  of  magic  may  have  been 
entertained  by  some  students  of  the  science  of  reli- 
gion in  the  past,  and  may  not  yet  have  been  thrown 
off  by  all.  But  it  holds  no  place  now  in  the  science 
of  religion.  To  derive  either  science  or  religion 
from  the  magic  which  exists  only  by  mimicking  one 
or  the  other  is  just  as  absurd  as  to  imagine  that  the 
insect  which  imitates  the  colour  of  the  leaf  whereon 
it  lives  precedes  and  creates  the  tree  which  is  to 
support  it. 


FETICHISM 

THE  line  of  action  taken  by  the  missionary  at 
work  will,  like  that  of  any  other  practical  man,  be 
conditioned,  not  only  by  the  object  which  he  wishes 
to  attain,  but  also  by  the  nature  of  the  material  on 
which  and  with  which  he  has  to  work.  He  requires 
therefore  all  the  information  which  the  science  of 
religion  can  place  at  his  disposal  about  the  beliefs 
and  practices  of  those  amongst  whom  his  work  is 
cast;  and,  if  he  is  to  make  practical  use  of  that 
information,  he  must  know  not  only  that  certain 
beliefs  and  practices  do  as  a  matter  of  fact  obtain, 
he  must  know  also  what  is  their  value  for  his  special 
purpose  —  what,  if  any,  are  the  points  about  them 
which  have  religious  value,  and  can  be  utilized  by 
him;  and  what  are  those  points  about  them  which 
are  obstructive  to  his  purpose,  and  how  best  they 
may  be  removed  and  counteracted.  To  supply  him 
with  this  information,  to  give  him  this  estimate  of 
values,  to  guide  him  as  to  the  attitude  he  should 
assume  and  the  way  in  which  he  may  utilise  or  must 

105 


IO6  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

attack  native  practices  and  beliefs,  is  the  object 
with  which  the  applied  science  of  religion,  when  it 
has  been  constituted  by  the  action  of  Hartford 
Theological  Seminary,  will  address  itself. 

Now,  it  may  seem  from  the  practical  point  of  view 
of  the  missionary  that  with  regard  to  fetichism 
there  can  be  no  question  as  to  what  its  value  is  or 
as  to  what  his  attitude  should  be  towards  it.  But, 
even  if  we  should  ultimately  find  that  fetichism  is 
obstructive  to  religion,  we  shall  still  want  to  know 
what  hints  we  can  extract  from  the  science  of 
religion  as  to  the  best  way  of  cutting  at  the  roots  of 
fetichism ;  and  therefore  it  will  be  necessary  to  con- 
sider what  exactly  fetichism  is.  And,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  a  tendency  manifesting  itself  amongst 
students  of  the  science  of  religion  to  say,  as  Dr. 
Haddon  says  (Magic  and  Fetichism,  p.  91),  that 
"  fetichism  is  a  stage  of  religious  development "; 
and  amongst  writers  on  the  philosophy  of  religion 
to  take  fetichism  and  treat  it,  provisionally  at  any 
rate,  if  not  as  the  primitive  religion  of  mankind,  then 
as  that  form  of  religion  which  "we  find  amongst 
men  at  the  lowest  stage  of  development  known  to 
us"  (Hoffding,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  E.  T.,  §§  45, 
46).  If,  then,  fetichism  is  the  primitive  religion  of 


FETICHISM  107 

mankind  or  a  stage  of  religious  development,  "a 
basis  from  which  many  other  modes  of  religious 
thought  have  been  developed"  (Haddon,  p.  91),  it  will 
have  a  value  which  the  missionary  must  recognise. 
And  in  any  case  he  must  know  what  value,  if  any,  it 
has. 

Now,  if  we  are,  I  will  not  say  to  do  justice  to  the 
view  that  fetichism  is  the  primitive  religion  of  man- 
kind or  a  stage  from  which  other  modes  of  religious 
thought  have  been  developed,  but  if  we  are  simply 
to  understand  it,  we  must  clearly  distinguish  it  from 
the  view  —  somewhat  paradoxical  to  say  the  least 
—  that  fetichism  has  no  religious  value,  and  yet  is 
the  source  of  all  religious  values.  The  inference 
which  may  legitimately  be  drawn  from  this  second 
view  is  that  all  forms  of  religious  thought,  having 
been  evolved  from  this  primitive  religion  of  man- 
kind, have  precisely  the  same  value  as  it  has;  they 
do  but  make  explicit  what  it  really  was ;  the  history 
of  religion  does  but  write  large  and  set  out  at  length 
what  was  contained  in  it  from  the  first ;  in  fetichism 
we  see  what  from  the  first  religion  was,  and  what  at 
the  last  religion  is.  On  this  view,  the  source  from 
which  all  religious  values  spring  is  fetichism ;  fetich- 
ism has  no  value  of  any  kind,  and  therefore  the 


108  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

evolved  forms  of  fetichism  which  we  call  forms  of 
religion  have  no  value  either  of  any  kind.  Thus, 
science  —  the  science  of  religion  —  is  supposed  to 
demonstrate  by  scientific  methods  the  real  nature 
and  the  essential  character  of  all  religion. 

Now,  the  error  in  this  reasoning  proceeds  partly 
on  a  false  conception  of  the  object  and  method  of 
science  —  a  false  conception  which  is  slowly  but 
surely  disappearing.  The  object  of  all  science, 
whether  it  be  physical  science  or  other,  whether  it 
be  historic  science  or  other,  is  to  establish  facts. 
The  object  of  the  historic  science  of  religion  is  to 
record  the  facts  of  the  history  of  religion  in  such  a 
way  that  the  accuracy  of  the  record  as  a  record  will 
be  disputed  by  no  one  qualified  to  judge  the  fact. 
For  that  purpose,  it  abstains  deliberately  and  con- 
sistently from  asking  or  considering  the  religious 
value  of  any  of  the  facts  with  which  it  deals.  It  has 
not  to  consider,  and  does  not  consider,  what  would 
have  been,  still  less  what  ought  to  have  been,  the 
course  of  history,  but  simply  what  it  was.  In  this 
it  is  following  merely  the  dictates  of  common  sense ; 
before  we  can  profitably  express  an  opinion  on  any 
occurrence,  we  must  know  what  exactly  it  was  that 
occurred;  and  to  learn  what  occurred  we  must 


FETICHISM 

divest  our  minds  of  preconceptions.  It  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  science  of  religion  to  set  aside  precon- 
ceptions as  to  whether  religion  has  or  has  not  any 
value;  and  if  it  does  set  them  aside,  that  is  to  say 
so  far  as  it  is  scientific,  it  will  end  as  it  began  without 
touching  on  the  question  of  the  value  of  religion.  In 
fine,  it  is,  and  would  I  think  now  be  generally  ad- 
mitted to  be,  a  misconception  of  the  function  of  the 
science  of  religion  to  imagine  that  it  does,  or  can, 
prove  anything  as  to  the  truth  of  religion,  one  way 
or  the  other. 

There  is,  however,  another  error  in  the  reasoning 
which  is  directed  to  show  that  in  fetichism  we  see 
what  religion  was  and  essentially  is.  That  error 
consists  not  only  in  a  false  conception  of  what  reli- 
gion is,  —  the  man  who  has  himself  no  religion  may 
be  excused  if  he  fails  to  understand  fully  what  it  is,  — * 
it  is  based  on  a  misunderstanding  of  what  fetichism  • 
is.  And  so  confusion  is  doubly  confounded.  The 
source  of  that  misunderstanding  is  to  be  found  in 
Bosnian  (Pinkerton,  Voyages  and  Travels,  London, 
1814,  XVI,  493),  who  says:  "I  once  asked  a  negro 
with  whom  I  could  talk  very  freely  .  .  .  how  they 
celebrated  their  divine  worship,  and  what  number 
of  gods  they  had ;  he,  laughing,  answered  that  I  had 


110  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

puzzled  him;  and  assured  me  that  nobody  in  the 
whole  country  could  give  me  an  exact  account  of  it. 
'For,  as  for  my  own  part,  I  have  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  gods,  and  doubt  not  but  that  others  have  as 
many.  For  any  of  us  being  resolved  to  undertake 
anything  of  importance,  we  first  of  all  search  out 
a  god  to  prosper  our  designed  undertaking;  and 
going  out  of  doors  with  the  design,  take  the  first 
creature  that  presents  itself  to  our  eyes,  whether 
dog,  cat,  or  the  most  contemptible  creature  in  the 
world  for  our  god ;  or,  perhaps,  instead  of  that,  any 
inanimate  that  falls  in  our  way,  whether  a  stone,  a 
piece  of  wood,  or  anything  else  of  the  same  nature. 
This  new-chosen  god  is  immediately  presented  with 
an  offering,  which  is  accompanied  by  a  solemn  vow, 
that  if  it  pleaseth  him  to  prosper  our  undertakings, 
for  the  future  we  will  always  worship  and  esteem 
him  as  a  god.  If  our  design  prove  successful,  we 
have  discovered  a  new  and  assisting  god,  which  is 
daily  presented  with  a  fresh  offering ;  but  if  the  con- 
trary happen,  the  new  god  is  rejected  as  a  useless 
tool,  and  consequently  returns  to  his  primitive 
estate.  We  make  and  break  our  gods  daily,  and 
consequently  are  the  masters  and  inventors  of  what 
we  sacrifice  to.'"  Now,  all  this  was  said  by  the 


FETICHISM  III 

negro,  as  Bosnian  himself  observed,  to  "ridicule  his 
own  country  gods."  And  it  is  not  surprising  that  it 
should  have  been,  or  should  be,  accepted  as  a  trust- 
worthy description  of  the  earliest  form  of  religion  by 
those  who  in  the  highest  form  can  find  no  more  than 
this  negro  found  in  fetichism  when  he  wished  to 
ridicule  it. 

Let  us  hold  over  for  the  moment  the  question 
whether  fetichism  is  or  is  not  a  form  of  religion; 
and  let  us  enquire  how  far  the  account  given  by  Bos- 
man's  negro  accords  with  the  facts.  First,  though 
there  is  no  doubt  that  animals  are  worshipped  as 
gods,  and  though  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  guardian 
spirits  of  individuals  are  chosen,  or  are  supposed  to 
manifest  themselves,  for  example,  amongst  the  North 
American  Indians,  in  animal  form,  and  that  "the 
first  creature  that  presents  itself"  to  the  man  seek- 
ing the  manifestation  of  his  guardian  spirit  may  be 
taken  to  be  his  god,  even  though  it  be  "the  most 
contemptible  creature  in  the  world  " ;  still  students  of 
the  science  of  religion  are  fairly  satisfied  that  such 
gods  or  guardian  spirits  are  not  to  be  confused  with 
fetiches.  A  fetich  is  an  inanimate  or  lifeless  object, 
even  if  it  is  the  feather,  claw,  bone,  eyeball,  or  any 
other  part  of  an  animal  or  even  of  a  man.  It  is  as 


112  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Bosnian's  negro  said,  "any  inanimate  that  falls  in 
our  way."  When  he  goes  on  to  say  that  it  "is  im- 
mediately presented  with  an  offering,"  and,  so  long 
as  its  owner  believes  in  it,  "is  daily  presented  with 
a  fresh  offering,"  he  is  stating  a  fact  that  is  beyond 
dispute,  and  which  is  fully  recognised  by  all  stu- 
dents. A  typical  instance  is  given  by  Professor 
Tylor  (Primitive  Culture,  II,  158)  of  the  owner  of 
a  stone  which  had  been  taken  as  a  fetich:  "He  was 
once  going  out  on  important  business,  but  crossing 
the  threshold  he  trod  on  this  stone  and  hurt  himself. 
Ha!  ha!  thought  he,  art  thou  there?  So  he  took 
the  stone,  and  it  helped  him  through  his  undertaking 
for  days."  When  Bosnian's  negro  further  goes  on 
to  state  that  if  the  fetich  is  discovered  by  its  owner 
not  to  prosper  his  undertakings,  as  he  expected  it  to 
do,  "it  is  rejected  as  a  useless  tool,"  he  makes  a 
statement  which  is  admitted  to  be  true  and  which, 
in  its  truth,  may  be  understood  to  mean  that  when 
the  owner  finds  that  the  object  is  not  a  fetich,  he  casts 
it  aside  as  being  nothing  but  the  "inanimate"  which 
it  is.  Bosnian's  negro,  however,  says  not  that  the 
inanimate  but  that  "the  new  god  is  rejected  as  a 
useless  tool."  That  we  must  take  as  being  but  a 
carelessness  of  expression;  the  evidence  of  Colonel 


FETICHISM  113 

Ellis,  an  observer  whose  competence  is  undoubted, 
is:  "Every  native  with  whom  I  have  conversed  on 
the  subject  has  laughed  at  the  possibility  of  it  being 
supposed  that  he  could  worship  or  offer  sacrifice 
to  some  such  object  as  a  stone,  which  of  itself  would 
be  perfectly  obvious  to  his  senses  was  a  stone  only 
and  nothing  more"  (The  Tshi-s peaking  Peoples, 
p.  192).  From  these  words  it  follows  that  the^object 
worshipped  as  a  fetich  is  a  stone  (or  whatever  it  is) 
and  something  more,  and  that  the  object  "rejected 
as  a  useless  tool"  is  a  stone  (or  whatever  it  is)  and 
nothing  more.  When,  then,  Bosnian's  negro  goes 
on  to  say,  "we  make  and  break  our  gods  daily," 
he  is  not  describing  accurately  the  processes  as  they 
are  conceived  by  those  who  perform  them.  The 
fetich  worshipper  believes  that  the  object  which 
arrests  his  attention  has  already  the  powers  which 
he  ascribes  to  it;  and  it  is  in  consequence  of  that 
belief  that  he  takes  it  as  his  fetich.  And  it  is  only 
when  he  is  convinced  that  it  is  not  a  fetich  that  he 
rejects  it  as  a  useless  tool.  But  what  Bosnian's 
negro  suggests,  and  apparently  intended  to  suggest, 
is  that  the  fetich  worshipper  makes,  say,  a  stone/ 
his  god,  knowing  that  it  is  a  stone  and  nothing  more ; ' 
and  that  he  breaks  his  fetich  believing  it  to  be  a  god. 


114  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

Thus  the  worshipper  knows  that  the  object  is  no  god 
when  he  is  worshipping  it;  but  believes  it  to  be  a 
god  when  he  rejects  it  as  a  useless  tool.  Now  that  is, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  deliberately  or  not,  a 
misrepresentation  of  fetichism;  and  it  is  precisely 
on  that  misconception  of  what  fetichism  is  that  they 
base  themselves  who  identify  religion  with  fetichism, 
and  then  argue  that,  as  fetichism  has  no  value,  reli- 
gious or  reasonable,  neither  has  religion  itself. 

Returning  now  to  the  question  what  fetichism  is 
—  a  question  which  must  be  answered  before  we 
can  enquire  what  religious  value  it  possesses,  and 
whether  it  can  be  of  any  use  for  the  practical  pur- 
poses of  the  missionary  in  his  work  —  we  have  now 
seen  that  a  fetich  is  not  merely  an  "inanimate," 
but  something  more;  and  that  an  object  to  become 
regarded  as  a  fetich  must  attract  the  attention  of 
the  man  who  is  to  adopt  it,  and  must  attract  the 
attention  of  the  man  when  he  has  business  on  hand, 
that  is  to  say  when  he  has  some  end  in  view  which 
he  desires  to  attain,  or  generally  when  he  is  in  a 
state  of  expectancy.  The  process  of  choice  is  one 
of  "natural  selection."  Professor  Hoffding  sees 
in  it  "the  simplest  conceivable  construction  of 
religious  ideas.  The  choice  is  entirely  elementary 


FETICHISM  115 

and  involuntary,  as  elementary  and  involuntary  as 
the  exclamation  which  is  the  simplest  form  of  a 
judgment  of  worth.  The  object  chosen  must  be 
something  or  other  which  is  closely  bound  up 
with  whatever  engrosses  the  mind.  It  perhaps 
awakens  memories  of  earlier  events  in  which 
it  was  present  or  cooperative,  or  else  it  pre- 
sents a  certain  —  perhaps  a  very  distant  —  similarity 
to  objects  which  helped  in  previous  times  of  need. 
Or  it  may  be  merely  the  first  object  which  presents 
itself  in  a  moment  of  strained  expectation.  It 
attracts  attention,  and  is  therefore  involuntarily 
associated  with  what  is  about  to  happen,  with  the 
possibility  of  attaining  the  desired  end"  (Philosophy 
of  Religion,  E.  T.,  p.  139).  And  then  Professor 
Hoffding  goes  on  to  say,  "In  such  phenomena  as 
these  we  encounter  religion  under  the  guise  of  de- 
sire." Now,  without  denying  that  there  are  such 
things  as  religious  desires  —  and  holding  as  we  do 
that  religion  is  the  search  after  God  and  the  yearn- 
ing of  the  human  heart  after  Him,  "the  desire 
of  all  nations,"  we  shall  have  no  temptation  to 
deny  that  there  are  such  things  as  religious  desires 
—  yet  we  must  for  the  moment  reserve  our  decision 
on  the  question  whether  it  is  in  such  phenomena 


Il6  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

as  these  that  we  encounter  religious  desires,  and 
we  must  bear  in  mind  that  there  are  desires  which 
are  not  religious,  and  that  we  want  to  know  whether 
it  is  in  the  phenomena  of  fetichism  that  we  encounter 
religious  desires. 

That  in  the  phenomena  of  fetichism  we  encounter 
desires  other  than  religious  is  beyond  dispute:  the 
use  of  a  fetich  is,  as  Dr.  Nassau  says,  "to  aid  the 
possessor  in  the  accomplishment  of  some  specific 
wish"  (Fetichism  in  West  Africa,  p.  82);  that  is,  of 
any  specific  wish.  Now,  a  fetich  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
an  inanimate  object  and  something  more.  What 
more  ?  In  actual  truth,  nothing  more  than  the  fact 
that  it  is  "involuntarily  associated  with  what  is 
about  to  happen,  with  the  possibility  of  attaining 
the  desired  end."  But  to  the  possessor  the  some- 
thing more,  it  may  be  said,  is  the  fact  that  it  is  not 
merely  an  "inanimate"  but  also  a  spirit,  or  the  habi- 
tation of  a  spiritual  being.  When,  however,  we 
reflect  that  fetichism  goes  back  to  the  animistic 
stage  of  human  thought,  in  which  all  the  things  that 
we  term  inanimate  are  believed  to  be  animated  by 
spirits,  it  is  obvious  that  we  require  some  differentia 
to  mark  off  those  things  (animated  by  spirits)  which 
are  fetiches  from  those  things  (animated  by  spirits) 


FETICHISM  117 

which  are  not.  And  the  differentia  is,  of  course, 
that  fetiches  are  spirits,  or  objects  animated  by 
spirits,  which  will  aid  the  possessor  in  the  accom- 
plishment of  some  specific  wish,  and  are  thought 
to  be  willing  so  to  aid,  owing  to  the  fact  that  by  an 
involuntary  association  of  ideas  they  become  con- 
nected in  the  worshipper's  mind  with  the  possibility 
of  attaining  the  end  he  has  in  view  at  the  moment. 
To  recognise  fetichism,  then,  in  its  simplest  if  not 
in  its  most  primitive  form,  all  we  need  postulate  is 
animism  —  the  belief  that  all  things  are  animated 
by  spirits  —  and  the  process  of  very  natural  selection 
which  has  already  been  described.  At  this  stage 
in  the  history  of  fetichism  it  is  especially  difficult 
to  judge  whether  the  fetich  is  the  spirit  or  the  object 
animated  by  the  spirit.  As  Dr.  Haddon  says  (p.  83), 
"Just  as  the  human  body  and  soul  form  one  in- 
dividual, so  the  material  object  and  its  occupying 
spirit  or  power  form  one  individual,  more  vague, 
perhaps,  but  still  with  many  attributes  distinctively 
human.  It  possesses  personality  and  will  ...  it 
possesses  most  of  the  human  passions,  —  anger,  re- 
venge, also  generosity  and  gratitude;  it  is  within 
reach  of  influence  and  may  be  benevolent,  hence  to 
be  deprecated  and  placated,  and  its  aid  enlisted." 


Il8  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

A  more  advanced  stage  in  the  history  of  fetichism 
is  that  which  is  reached  by  reflection  on  the  fact 
that  a  fetich  not  unfrequently  ceases  to  prosper  the 
undertakings  of  its  possessor  in  the  way  he  expected 
it  to  do.  On  the  principles  of  animism,  everything 
that  is  —  whether  animate,  or  inanimate  according 
to  our  notions  —  is  made  up  of  spirit,  or  soul,  and 
body.  In  the  case  of  man,  when  he  dies,  the  spirit 
leaves  the  body.  When,  therefore,  a  fetich  ceases  to 
act,  the  explanation  by  analogy  is  that  the  spirit 
has  left  the  body,  the  inanimate,  with  which  it  was 
originally  associated;  and  when  that  is  the  case, 
then,  as  we  learn  from  Miss  Kingsley  (Travels  in 
West  Africa,  pp.  304-305),  "the  little  thing  you  kept 
the  spirit  in  is  no  more  use  now,  and  only  fit  to  sell 
to  a  white  man  as  'a  big  curio."3  The  fact  that, 
in  native  belief,  what  we  call  an  inanimate  thing  may 
lose  its  soul  and  become  really  dead  is  shown  by 
Miss  Kingsley  in  a  passage  quoted  by  Dr.  Haddon : 
"Everything  that  he/'  the  native,  "knows  by  means 
of  his  senses  he  regards  as  a  twofold  entity  —  part 
spirit,  part  not  spirit,  or,  as  we  should  say,  matter; 
the  connection  of  a  certain  spirit  with  a  certain  mass 
of  matter,  he  holds,  is  not  permanent.  He  will 
point  out  to  you  a  lightning-struck  tree,  and  tell 


FETICHISM  119 

you  its  spirit  has  been  broken ;  he  will  tell  you  when 
the  cooking-pot  has  been  broken,  that  it  has  lost 
its  spirit"  (Folk-Lore,  VIII,  141).  We  might  safely 
infer  then  that  as  any  object  may  lose  its  spirit,  so  too 
may  an  object  which  has  been  chosen  as  a  fetich; 
even  if  we  had  not,  as  we  have,  direct  testimony 
to  the  belief. 

Next,  when  it  is  believed  that  an  object  may  lose 
its  spirit  and  become  dead  indeed,  there  is  room  and 
opportunity  for  the  belief  to  grow  that  its  spirit  may 
pass  into  some  other  object:  that  there  may  be 
a  transmigration  of  spirits.  And  when  this  belief 
arises,  a  fresh  stage  in  the  history  of  fetichism  is 
evolved.  And  the  fresh  stage  is  evolved  in  accord- 
ance with  the  law  that  governs  the  whole  evolution 
of  fetichism.  That  law  is  that  a  fetich  is  an  object 
believed  to  aid  its  possessor  in  attaining  the  end  he 
desires.  In  the  earliest  stage  of  its  history  anything 
which  happens  to  arrest  a  man's  attention  when  he 
is  in  a  state  of  expectancy  "is  involuntarily  associated 
with  what  is  about  to  happen,"  and  so  becomes  a 
fetich.  In  the  most  developed  stage  of  fetichism, 
men  are  not  content  to  wait  until  they  stumble  across 
a  fetich,  and  when  they  do  so  to  say,  "Ha!  ha!  art 
thou  there?"  Their  mental  attitude  becomes  in- 


120  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

terrogative:  "Ha!  ha!  where  art  thou?"  They 
no  longer  wait  to  stumble  across  a  fetich,  they  pro- 
ceed to  make  one;  and  for  that  procedure  a  belief 
in  the  transmigration  of  spirits  is  essential.  An 
object,  a  habitation  for  the  spirit,  is  prepared;  and 
he  is  invited,  conjured,  or  cdnjured,  into  it.  If  he 
is  conjured  into  it,  the  attitude  of  the  man  who 
invites  him  is  submissive;  if  cdnjured,  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  performer  is  one  of  superiority. 
Colonel  Ellis  throughout  all  his  careful  enquiries 
found  that  "so  great  is  the  fear  of  giving  possible 
offence  to  any  superhuman  agent  "  that  (in  the  region 
of  his  observation)  we  may  well  believe  that  even  the 
makers  of  fetiches  did  not  assume  to  command  the 
spirits.  But  elsewhere,  in  other  regions,  it  is  im- 
possible to  doubt  but  that  the  owners  of  fetiches 
not  only  conjure  the  spirits  into  the  objects,  but  also 
apply  coercion  to  them  when  they  fail  to  aid  their 
possessor  in  the  accomplishment  of  his  wishes. 
That,  I  take  it,  is  the  ultimate  stage  in  the  evolution, 
the  fine  flower,  of  fetichism.  And  it  is  not  religion, 
it  has  no  value  as  religion,  or  rather  its  value  is  anti- 
religious.  Even  if  we  were  to  accept  as  a  definition 
of  religion  that  it  is  the  conciliation  of  beings  con- 
ceived to  be  superior,  we  should  be  compelled  by 


FETICHISM  121 

the  definition  to  say  that  fetichism  in  its  eventual 
outcome  is  not  religion,  for  the  attitude  of  the  owner 
towards  his  fetich  is  then  one  of  superiority,  and  his 
method  is,  when  conciliation  fails,  to  apply  coer- 
cion. 

But  it  may  perhaps  be  argued  that  fetichism,  ex- 
cept in  what  I  have  termed  its  ultimate  evolution,  is 
religion  and  has  religious  value;  or,  to  put  it  other- 
wise, that  what  I  have  represented  as  the  eventual 
outcome  is  really  a  perversion  or  the  decline  of 
fetichism.  Then,  in  the  fetichism  which  is  or  rep- 
resents the  primitive  religion  of  mankind  we  meet, 
according  to  Professor  Hoffding,  "religion  under 
the  guise  of  desire."  Now,  not  all  desires  are 
religious;  and  the  question,  which  is  purely  a  ques- 
tion of  fact,  arises  whether  the  desires  which  fetich- 
ism subserves  are  religious.  And  in  using  the  word 
"religious"  I  will  not  here  place  any  extravagant 
meaning  on  the  word ;  I  will  take  it  in  the  meaning 
which  would  be  understood  by  the  community  in 
which  the  owner  of  a  fetich  dwells  himself.  In 
the  tribes  described  by  Colonel  Ellis,  for  instance, 
there  are  worshipped  personal  gods  having  proper 
names ;  and  the  worship  is  served  by  duly  appointed 
priests;  and  the  worshippers  consist  of  a  body  of 


122  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

persons  whose  welfare  the  god  has  at  heart.  Such 
are  some  of  the  salient  features  of  what  all  students 
of  the  science  of  religion  would  include  under  the 
head  of  the  religion  of  those  tribes.  Now  amongst 
those  same  tribes  the  fetich,  or  suhman,  as  it  is  termed 
by  them,  is  found;  and  there  are  several  features 
which  make  a  fetich  quite  distinguishable  from  any 
of  the  gods  which  are  worshipped  there.  Thus,  the 
fetich  has  no  body  of  worshippers:  it  is  the  pri- 
vate property  of  its  owner,  who  alone  makes  offer- 
ings to  it.  Its  raison  d'etre,  its  special  and  only 
function,  is  to  subserve  the  private  wishes  of  its 
owner.  In  so  far  as  he  makes  offerings  to  it  he  may 
be  called  its  priest;  but  he  is  not,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  priests  of  the  gods  who  are  worshipped  there, 
the  representative  of  the  community  or  congregation, 
for  a  fetich  has  no  plurality  of  worshippers;  and 
none  of  the  priests  of  the  gods  will  have  anything  to 
do  with  it.  Next,"  though  offerings  are  made  to  the 
suhman  by  its  owner,  they  are  made  in  private" 
(Jevons,  History  of  Religion,  p.  165)  —  there  is  no 
public  worship  —  and  "  public  opinion  does  not  ap- 
prove of  them."  The  interests  and  the  desires  which 
the  fetich  exists  to  promote  are  not  those  of  the  com- 
munity: they  are  antisocial,  for,  as  Colonel  Ellis 


FETICHISM  123 

tells  us,  "one  of  the  special  attributes  of  a  suhman 
is  to  procure  the  death  of  any  person  whom  its 
worshipper  may  wish  to  have  removed"  —  indeed 
"  the  most  important  function  of  the  suhman  appears 
to  be  to  work  evil  against  those  who  have  injured  or 
offended  its  worshipper." 

Thus,  a  very  clear  distinction  exists  between  the 
worship  of  a  fetich  and  the  worship  of  the  gods. 
It  is  not  merely  that  the  fetich  is  invoked  occasionally 
in  aid  of  antisocial  desires:  nothing  can  prevent 
the  worshipper  of  a  god,  if  the  worshipper  be  bad 
enough,  from  praying  for  that  which  he  ought  not 
to  pray  for.  It  is  that  the  gods  of  the  community 
are  there  to  sanction  and  further  all  desires  which 
are  for  the  good  of  the  community,  and  that  the 
fetich  is  there  to  further  desires  which  are  not  for 
the  good  of  the  community,  —  hence  it  is  that 
"  public  opinion  does  not  approve  of  them."  At 
another  stage  of  religious  evolution,  it  becomes 
apparent  and  is  openly  pronounced  that  neither  does 
the  god  of  the  community  approve  of  them;  and 
then  fetichism,  like  the  sin  of  witchcraft,  is  stamped 
out  more  or  less.  But  amongst  the  tribes  who  have 
only  reached  the  point  of  religious  progress  attained 
by  the  natives  of  West  Africa,  public  opinion  has 


124  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

only  gone  so  far  as  to  express  disapproval,  not  to 
declare  war. 

If,  then,  we  are  to  hold  to  the  view  of  Professor 
Hoffding  and  of  Dr.  Haddon,  that  fetichism  is  in 
its  essence,  or  was  at  the  beginning,  religious  in  its 
nature,  though  it  may  be  perverted  into  something 
non-religious  or  anti-religious,  we  must  at  any  rate 
admit  that  it  has  become  non-religious  not  only  in 
the  case  of  those  fetichists  who  assume  an  attitude 
of  superiority  and  command  to  their  fetiches,  but 
also  in  the  earlier  stage  of  evolution  when  the 
fetichist  preserves  an  attitude  of  submission  and 
conciliation  towards  his  fetich,  but  assumes  the  atti- 
tude only  for  the  purpose  of  realising  desires  which 
are  anti-social  and  recognised  to  be  anti-religious. 

But,  if  we  take  —  as  I  think  we  must  take  — 
that  line  of  argument,  the  conclusion  to  which  it 
will  bring  us  is  fairly  clear  and  is  not  far  off.  The 
differentia  or  rather  that  differentia  which  character- 
istically marks  off  the  fetich  from  the  god  is  the 
nature  of  the  desires  which  each  exists  to  promote; 
the  function  which  each  exists  to  fulfil,  the  end 
which  is  there  for  each  to  subserve.  But  the  ends 
are  different.  Not  only  are  they  different,  they  are 
antagonistic.  And  the  process  of  evolution  does 


FETICHISM  125 

but  bring  out  the  antagonism,  it  does  not  create  it. 
It  was  there  from  the  beginning.  From  the  moment 
there  was  society,  there  were  desires  which  could 
only  be  realised  at  the  cost  and  to  the  loss  of  society, 
as  well  as  desires  in  the  realisation  of  which  the  good 
of  society  was  realised.  The  assistance  of  powers 
other  than  human  might  be  sought;  and  the  nature 
of  the  power  which  was  sought  was  determined  by 
the  end  or  purpose  for  which  its  aid  was  employed 
or  invoked  —  if  for  the  good  of  society,  it  was  ap- 
proved by  society;  if  not,  not.  Its  function,  the 
end  it  subserved,  determined  its  value  for  society  — 
determined  whether  public  opinion  should  approve 
or  disapprove  of  it,  whether  it  was  a  god  of  the  com- 
munity or  the  fetich  of  an  individual.  Society  can 
only  exist  where  there  is  a  certain  community  of 
purpose  among  its  members ;  and  can  only  continue 
to  exist  where  anti-social  tendencies  are  to  some 
extent  suppressed  or  checked  by  force  of  public 
opinion. 

Fetichism,  then,  in  its  tendency  and  in  its  purpose, 
in  the  function  which  it  performs  and  the  end  at 
which  it  aims  is  not  only  distinguishable  from  reli- 
gion, it  is  antagonistic  to  it,  from  the  earliest  period 
of  its  history  to  the  latest.  Religion  is  social,  an 


126  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

affair  of  the  community;  fetichism  is  anti-social, 
condemned  by  the  community.  Public  opinion, 
expressing  the  moral  sentiments  of  the  community 
as  well  as  its  religious  feeling,  pronounces  both 
moral  and  religious  disapproval  of  the  man  who 
uses  a  suhman  for  its  special  purpose  of  causing 
death  —  committing  murder.  Fetichism  is  offen- 
sive to  the  morality  as  well  as  to  the  religion  even 
of  the  native.  To  seek  the  origin  of  religion  in 
fetichism  is  as  vain  as  to  seek  the  origin  of  morality 
in  the  selfish  and  self-seeking  tendencies  of  man. 
There  is  no  need  to  enquire  whether  fetichism  is 
historically  prior  to  religion,  or  whether  religion  is 
historically  prior  to  fetichism.  Man,  as  long  as  he 
has  lived  in  societies,  must  have  had  desires  which 
were  incompatible  with  the  welfare  of  the  com- 
munity as  well  as  desires  which  promoted  its  wel- 
fare. The  powers  which  are  supposed  to  care 
whether  the  community  fares  well  are  the  gods  of 
the  community;  and  their  worship  is  the  religion 
of  the  community.  The  powers  which  have  no 
such  care  are  not  gods,  nor  is  their  worship  —  if 
coercion  or  cajolery  can  be  called  worship  —  reli- 
gion. The  essence  of  fetichism  on  its  external 
side  is  that  the  owner  of  the  fetich  alone  has  access 


FETICHISM  127 

to  it,  alone  can  pray  to  it,  alone  can  offer  sacrifices 
to  it.  It  is  therefore  in  its  inward  essence  directly 
destructive  of  the  unity  of  interests  and  purposes 
that  society  demands  and  religion  promotes.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  the  prac- 
tice of  making  prayers  and  offerings  to  a  fetich  is 
borrowed  from  religious  worship:  they  are  the 
natural  and  instinctive  method  of  approaching  any 
power  which  is  capable  of  granting  or  refusing  what 
we  desire.  It  is  the  quarter  to  which  they  are 
addressed,  and  the  end  for  which  they  are  employed, 
that  makes  the  difference  between  them.  It  is  the 
fact  that  in  the  one  case  they  are,  and  in  the  other 
are  not,  addressed  to  the  quarter  to  which  they  ought 
to  be  addressed,  and  employed  for  the  end  for  which 
they  ought  to  be  employed,  that  makes  the  difference 
in  religious  value  between  them. 

If  we  bear  in  mind  the  simple  fact  that  fetichism 
is  condemned  by  the  religious  and  moral  feelings 
of  the  communities  in  which  it  exists,  we  shall  not 
fall  into  the  mistake  of  regarding  fetichism  either 
as  the  primitive  religion  of  mankind  or  as  a  stage 
of  religious  development  or  as  "a  basis  from  which 
many  other  modes  of  religious  thought  have  been 
developed." 


128  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Professor  Hoffding,  holding  that  fetichism  is  the 
primitive  religion,  out  of  which  polytheism  was 
developed,  adopts  Usener's  theory  as  to  the  mode 
of  its  evolution.  "The  fetich,"  Professor  Hoffding 
says  (p.  140),  "  is  only  the  provisional  and  momen- 
tary dwelling-place  of  a  spirit.  As  Hermann 
Usener  has  strikingly  called  it,  it  is  'the  god  of  a 
moment.'"  But  though  Professor  Hoffding  adopts 
this  definition  of  a  fetich,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
course  of  his  argument  requires  us  to  understand  it 
as  subject  to  a  certain  limitation.  His  argument  in 
effect  is  that  fetichism  is  not  polytheism,  but  some- 
thing different,  something  out  of  which  polytheism 
was  evolved.  And  the  difference  is  that  polytheism 
means  a  plurality  of  gods,  whereas  fetichism  knows 
V  no  gods,  but  only  spirits.  Inasmuch  then  as,  on  the 
theory  —  whether  it  is  held  by  Hoffding  or  by  any- 
body else  —  that  the  spirits  of  fetichism  become  the 
gods  of  polytheism,  there  must  be  differences  between 
the  spirits  of  the  one  and  the  gods  of  the  other,  let 
us  enquire  what  the  differences  are  supposed  to 
be. 

First,  there  is  the  statement  that  a  fetich  is  the 
"god  of  a  moment,"  by  which  must  be  meant  that 
the  spirits  which,  so  long  as  they  are  momentary  and 


FETICHISM  129 

temporary,  are  fetiches,  must  come  to  be  permanent 
if  they  are  to  attain  to  the  rank  of  gods. 

But  on  this  point  Dr.  Haddon  differs.  He  is 
quite  clear  that  a  fetich  may  be  worshipped  per- 
manently without  ceasing  to  be  a  fetich.  And  it  is 
indeed  abundantly  clear  that  an  object  only  ceases 
to  be  worshipped  when  its  owner  is  convinced  that  it 
is  not  really  a  fetich;  as  long  as  he  is  satisfied  that 
it  is  a  fetich,  he  continues  its  cult  —  and  he  continues 
it  because  it  is  his  personal  property,  because  he, 
and  not  the  rest  of  the  community,  has  access 
to  it. 

Next,  Hoffding  argues  that  it  is  from  these  mo- 
mentary fetiches  that  special  or  specialised  deities 
—  "  depart  mental  gods,"  as  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  has 
termed  them — arise.  And  these  "  specialised  divini- 
ties constitute  an  advance  on  gods  of  the  moment" 
(p.  142).  Now,  what  is  implied  in  this  argument, 
what  is  postulated  but  not  expressed,  is  that  a 
fetich  has  only  one  particular  thing  which  it  can  do. 
A  departmental  god  can  only  do  one  particular 
sort  of  thing,  has  one  specialised  function.  A  de- 
partmental god  is  but  a  fetich  advanced  one  stage  in 
the  hierarchy  of  divine  beings.  Therefore  the  func- 
tion of  the  fetich  in  the  first  instance  was  specialised 


130  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

and  limited.  But  there  it  is  that  the  a  priori  argu- 
ment comes  into  collision  with  the  actual  facts. 
A  fetich,  when  it  presents  itself  to  a  man,  assists 
him  in  the  particular  business  on  which  he  is  at  the 
moment  engaged.  But  it  only  continues  to  act  as 
a  fetich,  provided  that  it  assists  him  afterwards  and 
in  other  matters  also.  The  desires  of  the  owner 
are  not  limited,  and  consequently  neither  are  his 
expectations ;  the  business  of  the  fetich  is  to  procure 
him  general  prosperity  (Haddon,  p.  83).  As  far 
as  fetiches  are  concerned,  it  is  simply  reversing  the 
facts  to  suppose  that  it  is  because  one  fetich  can  only 
do  one  thing,  that  many  fetiches  are  picked  up. 
Many  objects  are  picked  up  on  the  chance  of  their 
proving  fetiches,  because  if  the  object  turns  out 
really  to  be  a  fetich  it  will  bring  its  owner  good  luck 
and  prosperity  generally — there  is  no  knowing  what 
it  may  do.  But  it  is  only  to  its  owner  that  it  brings 
prosperity  —  not  to  other  people,  not  to  the  com- 
munity, for  the  community  is  debarred  access  to  it. 

The  next  difference  between  fetichism  and  poly- 
theism, according  to  Hoffding,  is  that  the  gods  of 
polytheism  have  developed  that  personality  which 
is  not  indeed  absolutely  wanting  in  the  spirits  of 
fetichism  but  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  properly 


FETICHISM  131 

there.  "The  transition,"  he  says,  "from  momen- 
tary and  special  gods  to  gods  which  can  properly  be 
called  personal  is  one  of  the  most  important  transi- 
tions in  the  history  of  religion.  It  denotes  the 
transition  from  animism  to  polytheism"  (p.  145). 
And  one  of  the  outward  signs  that  the  transition 
has  been  effected  is,  as  Usener  points  out  with 
special  emphasis,  "that  only  at  a  certain  stage  of 
evolution,  i.e.,  on  the  appearance  of  polytheism,  do 
the  gods  acquire  proper  names"  (ib.  147). 

Now,  this  argument,  I  suggest,  seeks  to  make,  or 
to  make  much  of,  a  difference  between  fetichism 
and  polytheism  which  scarcely  exists,  and  so  far  as 
it  does  exist  is  not  the  real  difference  between  them. 
It  seeks  to  minimise,  if  not  to  deny,  the  personality 
of  the  fetich,  in  order  to  exalt  that  of  the  gods  of 
polytheism.  And  then  this  difference  in  degree  of 
personality,  this  transition  from  the  one  degree  to 
the  other,  is  exhibited  as  "one  of  the  most  important 
transitions  in  the  history  of  religion."  The  question 
therefore  is  first  whether  the  difference  is  so  great, 
and  next  whether  it  is  the  real  difference  between 
fetichism  and  religion  in  the  polytheistic  stage. 

The  difference  in  point  of  personality  between  the 
spirits  of  fetichism  and  the  gods  of  polytheism  is  not 


132  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

absolute.  The  fetich,  according  to  Dr.  Haddon, 
"possesses  personality  and  will,  it  has  also  many 
human  characters.  It  possesses  most  of  the  human 
passions,  anger,  revenge,  also  generosity  and  grati- 
tude; it  is  within  reach  of  influence  and  may  be 
benevolent,  is  hence  to  be  deprecated  and  placated, 
and  its  aid  to  be  enlisted"  (p.  83);  "the  fetich  is 
worshipped,  prayed  to,  sacrificed  to,  and  talked 
with"  (p.  89). 

But,  perhaps  it  may  be  said  that,  though  the 
fetich  does  "possess  personality,"  it  is  only  when  it 
has  acquired  sufficient  personality  to  enjoy  a  proper 
name  that  it  becomes  a  god,  or  fetichism  passes 
into  polytheism.  To  this  the  reply  is  that  poly- 
theism does  not  wait  thus  deferentially  on  the  evo- 
lution of  proper  names.  There  was  a  period  in  the 
evolution  of  the  human  race  when  men  neither  had 
proper  names  of  their  own  nor  knew  their  fellows  by 
proper  names;  and  yet  they  doubted  not  their  per- 
sonality. The  simple  fact  is  that  he  wko  is  to 
receive  a  name — whether  he  be  a  human  being  or  a 
spiritual  being — must  be  there  in  order  to  be  named. 
When  he  is  there  he  may  receive  a  name  which  has 
lost  all  meaning,  as  proper  names  at  the  present  day 
have  generally  done;  or  one  which  has  a  meaning. 


FETICHISM  133 

A  mother  may  address  her  child  as  "John"  or  as 
"boy,"  but,  whichever  form  of  address  she  uses,  she 
has  no  doubt  that  the  child  has  a  personality.  The 
fact  that  a  fetich  has  not  acquired  a  proper  name  is 
not  a  proof  that  it  has  acquired  no  personality ;  if  it 
can,  as  Dr.  Haddon  says  it  can,  be  "petted  or 
ill-treated  with  regard  to  its  past  or  future  be- 
haviour" (p.  90),  its  personality  is  undeniable.  If  it 
can  be  "worshipped,  prayed  to,  sacrificed  to,  talked 
with,"  it  is  as  personal  as  any  deity  in  a  pantheon. 
If  it  has  no  proper  name,  neither  at  one  time  had 
men  themselves.  And  Hoffding  himself  seems  dis- 
inclined to  follow  Usener  on  this  point:  "no  im- 
portant period,"  he  says  (p.  147),  "in  the  history  of 
religion  can  begin  with  an  empty  word.  The  word  can 
neither  be  the  beginning  nor  exist  at  the  beginning." 
Finally  Hoffding,  to  enforce  the  conclusion  that 
polytheism  is  evolved  from  fetichism,  says:  "The 
influenca.exerted  by  worship  on  the  life  of  religious 
ideas  csA  find  no  more  striking  exemplification  than 
in  the  ^ord  'god'  itself:  when  we  study  those  ety- 
mologies of  this  word  which,  from  the  philological 
point  of  view,  appear  most  likely  to  be  correct,  we 
find  the  word  really  means  'he  to  whom  sacrifice 
is  made/  or  'he  who  is  worshipped'"  (p.  148). 


134  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Professor  Wilhelm  Thomsen  considers  the  first  ex- 
planation the  more  probable :  "In  that  case  there 
would  be  a  relationship  between  the  root  of  the  word 
' gott'  and  'giessen'  (to  pour),  as  also  between  the 
Greek  x&iv,  whose  root  %u  =  the  Sanskrit  hu,  from 
which  comes  huta,  which  means  'sacrificed,'  as  well 
as  'he  to  whom  sacrifices  are  made'"  (p.  396). 
Now,  if  "god"  means  either  "he  to  whom  sacrifice 
is  made"  or  "he  who  is  worshipped,"  we  have  only 
to  enquire  by  whom  the  sacrifice  is  made  or  the  wor- 
ship paid,  according  to  Professor  Hoffding,  in  order 
to  see  the  value  of  this  philological  argument.  A 
leading  difference  between  a  fetich  and  a  god  is  that 
sacrifice  is  made  and  worship  paid  to  the  fetich  by 
its  owner,  to  the  god  by  the  community.  Now 
this  philological  derivation  of  "god"  throws  no  light 
whatever  on  the  question  by  whom  the  "god"  is 
worshipped;  but  the  content  of  the  passage  which 
I  have  quoted  shows  that  Professor  Hoffding  him- 
self here  understands  the  worship  of  a  god  to  be 
the  worship  paid  by  the  community.  If  that  is  so, 
and  if  the  function  or  a  function  of  the  being  wor- 
shipped is  to  grant  the  desires  of  his  worshippers, 
then  the  function  of  the  being  worshipped  by  the 
community  is  to  grant  the  desires  of  the  community. 


FETICHISM  135 

And  if  that  is  the  distinguishing  mark  or  a  distinguish- 
ing mark  of  a  god,  then  the  worship  of  a  god  differs 
toto  caelo  from  the  worship  paid  to  a  fetich,  whose 
distinguishing  mark  is  that  it  is  subservient  to  the 
anti-social  wishes  of  its  owner,  and  is  not  worshipped 
by  the  community.  And  it  is  just  as  impossible  to 
maintain  that  a  god  is  evolved  out  of  a  fetich  as  it 
would  be  to  argue  —  indeed  it  is  arguing  —  that 
practices  destructive  of  society  or  social  welfare 

have  only  to  be  pushed  far  enough  and  they  will 

1 
prove  the  salvation  of  society. 

If  in  the  animistic  stage,  when  everything  that  is 
is  worked  by  spirits,  it  is  possible  and  desirable  for 
the  individual  to  gain  his  individual  ends  by  the 
cooperation  of  some  spirit,  it  is  equally  possible  and 
more  desirable  for  the  community  to  gain  the  aid 
of  a  spirit  which  will  further  the  ends  for  the  sake 
of  which  the  community  exists.  But  those  ends  are 
not  transient  or  momentary,  neither  therefore  can 
the  spirit  who  promotes  them  be  a  " momentary" 
god.  And  if  we  accept  Hoffding's  description  of 
the  simplest  and  earliest  manifestation  of  the  reli- 
gious spirit  as  being  belief  "in  a  power  which  cares 
whether  he  [man]  has  or  has  not  experiences  which  he 
values,"  we  must  be  careful  to  make  it  clear  that  the 


136  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

power  worshipped  by  a  community  is  worshipped 
because  he  is  believed  to  care  that  the  community 
should  have  the  experiences  which  the  community 
values.  Having  made  that  stipulation,  we  may 
accept  Hoffding's  further  statement  (p.  147)  that 
"even  the  momentary  and  special  gods  implied  the 
existence  of  a  personifying  tendency  and  faculty  " ; 
for,  although  from  our  point  of  view  a  momentary 
god  is  a  self-contradictory  notion,  we  are  quite 
willing  to  agree  that  this  tendency  to  personification 
may  be  taken  as  primary  and  primitive:  religion 
from  the  beginning  has  been  the  search  after  a  power 
essentially  personal.  But  that  way  of  conceiving 
spiritual  powers  is  not  in  itself  distinctive  of  or  con- 
fined to  religion:  it  is  an  intellectual  conception; 
it  is  the  essence  of  animism,  and  animism  is  not 
religion.  To  say  that  an  emotional  element  also 
must  be  present  is  true;  but  neither  will  that  serve 
to  mark  off  fetichism  from  religion.  Fetichism 
also  is  emotional  in  tone:  it  is  in  hope  that  the 
savage  picks  up  the  thing  that  may  prove  to  have 
the  fetich  power;  and  it  is  with  fear  that  he  recog- 
nises his  neighbour's  suhman.  A  god  is  not  merely 
a  power  conceived  of  intellectually  and  felt  emotion- 
ally to  be  a  personal  power  from  whom  things  may 


FETICHISM  137 

be  hoped  or  feared;  he  must  indeed  be  a  personal 
power  and  be  regarded  with  hope  and  fear,  but  it  is 
by  a  community  that  he  must  be  so  regarded.  And 
the  community,  in  turning  to  such  a  power,  worships 
him  with  sacrifice:  a  god  is  indeed  he  to  whom 
sacrifice  is  made  and  worship  paid  by  the  com- 
munity, with  whose  interests  and  whose  morality 
—  with  whose  good,  in  a  word,  he  is  from  the  be- 
ginning identified.  "In  the  absence  of  experience 
of  good  as  one  of  the  realities  of  life,  no  one,"  Hoff- 
ding  says,  "would  ever  have  believed  in  the  goodness 
of  the  gods";  and,  we  may  add,  it  is  as  interested 
in  and  caring  for  the  good  of  the  community  that 
the  god  of  the  community  is  worshipped.  It  is  in 
the  conviction  that  he  does  so  care,  that  religious 
feeling  is  rooted;  or,  as  Hoffding  puts  it  (p.  162), 
it  is  rooted  in  "the  need  to  collect  and  concentrate 
ourselves,  to  resign  ourselves,  to  feel  ourselves  sup- 
ported and  carried  by  a  power  raised  above  all 
struggle  and  opposition  and  beyond  all  change." 
There  we  have,  implicit  from  the  beginning,  that 
communion  with  god,  or  striving  thereafter,  which 
is  essential  to  worship.  It  is  faith.  It  is  rest. 
It  is  the  heart's  desire.  And  it  is  not  fetichism, 
nor  is  fetichism  it. 


PRAYER 

THE  physician,  if  he  is  to  do  his  work,  must  know 
both  a  healthy  and  a  diseased  body,  or  organ,  when  he 
sees  it.  He  must  know  the  difference  between  the 
two  and  the  symptoms  both  of  health  and  disease. 
Otherwise  he  is  in  danger  of  trying  to  cure  an  organ 
which  is  healthy  already  —  in  which  case  his  reme- 
dies will  simply  aggravate  the  disease.  That  is 
obviously  true  of  the  physician  who  seeks  to  heal  the 
body,  and  it  is  equally,  if  not  so  obviously,  true  of 
the  physician  who  seeks  to  minister  to  a  mind,  or  a 
soul,  diseased.  Now,  the  missionary  will  find  that 
the  heathen,  to  whom  he  is  to  minister,  have  the 
habit  of  prayer;  and  the  question  arises,  What  is 
to  be  his  attitude  towards  it  ?  He  cannot  take  up 
the  position  that  prayer  is  in  itself  a  habit  to  be 
condemned;  he  is  not  there  to  eradicate  the  habit, 
or  to  uproot  the  tendency.  Neither  is  he  there 
to  create  the  habit;  it  already  exists,  and  the  wise 
missionary  will  acknowledge  its  existence  with  thank- 
fulness. His  business  is  not  to  teach  his  flock  to 

138 


PRAYER  139 

pray,  but  how  to  pray,  that  is  to  say,  for  what  and 
to  whom.  But  even  if  he  thus  wisely  recognises 
that  prayer  is  a  habit  not  to  be  created,  but  to  be 
trained  by  him,  it  is  still  possible  for  him  to  assume 
rashly  that  it  is  simply  impossible  for  a  heathen  ever 
to  pray  for  anything  that  is  right,  and  therefore, 
that  it  is  a  missionary's  duty  first  to  insist  that 
everything  for  which  a  savage  or  barbarian  prays 
must  be  condemned  as  essentially  irreligious  and 
wicked.  In  that  case,  what  will  such  a  mission- 
ary, if  sent  to  the  Khonds  of  Orissa,  say,  when  he 
finds  them  praying  thus:  "  We  are  ignorant  of  what 
it  is  good  to  ask  for.  You  know  what  is  good  for 
us.  Give  it  to  us!"?  Can  he  possibly  say  to  his 
flock,  "All  your  prayers,  all  the  things  that  you  pray 
for  now,  are  wicked ;  and  your  only  hope  of  salvation 
lies  in  ceasing  to  pray  for  them"?  If  not,  then  he 
must  recognise  the  fact  that  it  is  possible  for  the 
heathen  to  pray,  and  to  pray  for  some  things  that 
it  is  right  to  pray  for.  And  he  must  not  only  recog- 
nise the  fact,  but  he  must  utilise  it.  Nay !  more,  he 
must  not  only  recognise  the  fact  if  it  chances  to 
force  itself  upon  him,  he  must  go  out  of  his  way 
with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  finding  out  what 
things  are  prayed  for.  He  will  then  find  himself  in 


140  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

more  intimate  contact  with  the  soul  of  the  man  than 
he  can  ever  attain  to  in  any  other  way ;  and  he  may 
then  find  that  there  are  other  things  for  which  peti- 
tions are  put  up  which  could  not  be  prayed  for  save 
by  a  man  who  had  a  defective  or  erroneous  concep- 
tion of  Him  who  alone  can  answer  prayer. 

But  it  is  a  blundering,  unbusinesslike  way  of 
managing  things  if  the  missionary  has  to  go  out  to 
his  work  unprepared  in  this  essential  matter,  and 
has  to  find  out  these  things  for  himself  —  and  per- 
haps not  find  them  out  at  all.  The  applied  science 
of  religion  should  equip  him  in  this  respect;  it 
should  be  able  to  take  the  facts  and  truths  estab- 
lished by  the  science  of  religion  and  apply  them  to 
the  purposes  of  the  missionary.  But  it  is  a  striking 
example  of  the  youth  and  immaturity  of  the  science 
of  religion  that  no  attempt  has  yet  been  made  by  it 
to  collect  the  facts,  much  less  to  coordinate  and  state 
them  scientifically.  If  a  thing  is  clear,  when  we 
come  to  think  of  it,  in  the  history  of  religion,  it  is 
that  the  gods  are  there  to  be  prayed  to :  man  worships 
them  because  it  is  on  their  knees  that  all  things  lie. 
It  is  from  them  that  man  hopes  all  things;  it  is  in 
prayer  that  man  expresses  his  hopes  and  desires.  It 
is  from  his  prayers  that  we  should  be  able  to  find  out 


PRAYER  141 

what  the  gods  really  are  to  whom  man  prays.  What 
is  said  about  them  in  mythology  —  or  even  in  theol- 
ogy —  is  the  product  of  reflection,  and  is  in  many 
cases  demonstrably  different  from  what  is  given  in 
consciousness  at  the  moment  when  man  is  striving 
after  communion  with  the  Highest.  Yet  it  is  from 
mythology,  or  from  the  still  more  reflective  and  de- 
liberative expression  of  ritual,  of  rites  and  ceremonies, 
that  the  science  of  religion  has  sought  to  infer  the 
nature  of  the  gods  man  worships.  The  whole  appa- 
ratus of  religion,  rites  and  ceremonies,  sacrifice  and 
altars,  nature-worship  and  polytheism,  has  been  in- 
vestigated; the  one  thing  overlooked  has  been  the 
one  thing  for  the  sake  of  which  all  the  others  exist, 
the  prayer  in  which  man's  soul  rises,  or  seeks  to  rise; 
to  God. 

The  reason  given  by  Professor  Tylor  (Primitive 
Culture,  II,  364)  for  this  is  not  that  the  subject  is 
unimportant,  but  that  it  is  so  simple;  "so  simple 
and  familiar,"  he  says,  "is  the  nature  of  prayer 
that  its  study  does  not  demand  that  detail  of  fact  and 
argument  which  must  be  given  to  rites  in  compari- 
son practically  insignificant."  Now,  it  is  indeed  the 
case  that  things  which  are  familiar  may  appear  to  be 
simple ;  but  it  is  also  the  case  that  sometimes  things 


142  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

are  considered  simple  merely  because  they  are 
familiar,  and  not  because  they  are  simple.  The 
fact  that  they  are  not  so  simple  as  every  one  has 
assumed  comes  to  be  suspected  when  it  is  discovered 
that  people  take  slightly  different  views  of  them. 
Such  slightly  different  views  may  be  detected  in  this 
case. 

Professor  Hoffding  holds  that,  in  the  lowest 
form  in  which  religion  manifests  itself,  "religion 
appears  under  the  guise  of  desire,"  thus  rang- 
ing himself  on  the  side  of  an  opinion  mentioned 
by  Professor  Tylor  (op.  cit.,  II,  464)  that,  as  regards 
the  religion  of  the  lower  culture,  in  prayer  "the 
accomplishment  of  desire  is  asked  for,  but  desire  is 
as  yet  limited  to  personal  advantage."  Now,  start- 
ing from  this  position  that  prayer  is  the  expression 
of  desire,  we  have  only  to  ask,  whose  desire?  that 
of  the  individual  or  that  of  the  community?  and 
we  shall  see  that  under  the  simple  and  familiar 
phrase  of  "the  accomplishment  of  desire"  there 
lurks  a  difference  of  view  which  may  possibly  widen 
out  into  a  very  wide  difference  of  opinion.  If  we 
appeal  to  the  facts,  we  may  take  as  an  instance  a 
prayer  uttered  "in  loud  uncouth  voice  of  plaintive, 
piteous  tone"  by  one  of  the  Osages  to  Wohkonda, 


PRAYER  143 

the  Master  of  Life:  "Wohkonda,  pity  me,  I  am 
very  poor;  give  me  what  I  need;  give  me  success 
against  mine  enemies,  that  I  may  avenge  the  death 
of  my  friends.  May  I  be  able  to  take  scalps,  to  take 
horses!''  etc.  (Tylor,  II,  365).  So  on  the  Gold 
Coast  a  negro  in  the  morning  will  pray,  "Heaven! 
grant  that  I  may  have  something  to  eat  this  day" 
(ib.j  368),  not  "give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread"; 
or,  raising  his  eyes  to  heaven,  he  will  thus  address 
the  god  of  heaven:  "God,  give  me  to-day  rice 
and  yams,  gold  and  agries,  give  me  slaves,  riches 
and  health,  and  that  I  may  be  brisk  and  swift  I"  (ib.). 
On  the  other  hand,  John  Tanner  (Narrative,  p.  46) 
relates  that  when  Algonquin  Indians  were  setting 
out  in  a  fleet  of  frail  bark  canoes  across  Lake  Su- 
perior, the  chief  addressed  a  prayer  to  the  Great 
Spirit:  "You  have  made  this  lake;  and  you  have 
made  us,  your  children ;  you  can  now  cause  that  the 
water  shall  remain  smooth  while  we  pass  over  in 
safety."  The  chief,  it  will  be  observed,  did  not 
expressly  call  the  Great  Spirit  "our  Father,"  but 
he  did  speak  of  himself  and  his  men  as  "your 
children."  If  we  cross  over  to  Africa,  again,  we 
find  the  Masai  women  praying  thus;  and  be  it 
observed  that  though  the  first  person  singular  is  used, 


144  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

it  is  used  by  the  chorus  of  women,  and  is  plural  in 
effect :  — 


"  My  God,  to  thee  alone  I  pray 
That  offspring  may  to  me  be  given. 
Thee  only  I  invoke  each  day, 
O  morning  star  in  highest  heaven. 
God  of  the  thunder  and  the  rain, 
Give  ear  unto  my  suppliant  strain. 
Lord  of  the  powers  of  the  air, 
To  thee  I  raise  my  daily  prayer. 


"  My  God,  to  thee  alone  I  pray, 
Whose  savour  is  as  passing  sweet 
As  only  choicest  herbs  display, 
Thy  blessing  daily  I  entreat. 
Thou  hearest  when  I  pray  to  thee, 
And  listenest  in  thy  clemency. 
Lord  of  the  powers  of  the  air, 
To  thee  I  raise  my  daily  prayer." 

—  HOLLIS,  The  Masai,  p.  346. 

When  Professor  Tylor  says  that  by  the  savage 
"the  accomplishment  of  desire  is  asked  for,  but 
desire  is  as  yet  limited  to  personal  advantage,"  we 
must  be  careful  not  to  infer  that  the  only  advantage 
a  savage  is  capable  of  praying  for  is  his  own  selfish 
advantage.  Professor  Tylor  himself  quotes  (II, 


PRAYER  145 

366)  the  following  prayer  from  the  war-song  of  a 
Delaware :  — 

"  O  Great  Spirit  there  above, 
Have  pity  on  my  children 
And  my  wife ! 

Prevent  that  they  shall  mourn  for  me ! 
Let  me  succeed  in  this  undertaking, 
That  I  may  slay  my  enemy 
And  bring  home  the  tokens  of  victory 
To  my  dear  family  and  my  friends 
That  we  may  rejoice  together.  .  .  . 
Have  pity  on  me  and  protect  my  life, 
And  I  will  bring  thee  an  offering." 

Nor  is  it  exclusively  for  their  own  personal  advan- 
tage that  the  Masai  women  are  concerned  when  they 
pray  for  the  safe  return  of  their  sons  from  the  wars :  — 

"  O  thou  who  gavest,  thou  to  whom  we  pray 
For  offspring,  take  not  now  thy  gift  away. 
O  morning  star,  that  shinest  from  afar, 
Bring  back  our  sons  in  safety  from  the  war." 

—  HOLLIS,  p.  351. 

Nor  is  it  in  a  purely  selfish  spirit  that  the  Masai 
women  pray  that  their  warriors  may  have  the  ad- 
vantage over  all  their  enemies :  — 

i 

1 0  God  of  battles,  break 
The  power  of  the  foe. 


146  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

Their  cattle  may  we  take, 
Their  mightiest  lay  low. 


ii 


'  Sing,  O  ye  maidens  fair, 
For  triumph  o'er  the  foe. 
This  is  the  time  for  prayer 
Success  our  arms  may  know. 


m 

"  Morning  and  evening  stars 
That  in  the  heavens  glow, 
Break,  as  in  other  wars, 
The  power  of  the  foe. 

IV 

"  O  dweller,  where  on  high 
Flushes  at  dawn  the  snow, 
O  Cloud  God,  break,  we  cry, 
The  power  of  the  foe." 

—  76.,  p.  352. 

Again,  the  rain  that  is  prayed  for  by  the  Manganja 
of  Lake  Nyassa  is  an  advantage  indeed,  but  one 
enjoyed  by  the  community  and  prayed  for  by  the 
community.  They  made  offerings  to  the  Supreme 
Deity  that  he  might  give  them  rain,  and  "the 
priestess  dropped  the  meal  handful  by  handful  on 
the  ground,  each  time  calling  in  a  high-pitched  voice, 


PRAYER  147 

'Hear  thou,  O  God,  and  send  rain!'  and  the 
assembled  people  responded,  clapping  their  hands 
softly  and  intoning  (they  always  intone  their  prayers), 
'Hear  thou,  O  God'"  (Tylor,  p.  368). 

The  appeal  then  to  facts  shows  that  it  is  with 
the  desires  of  the  community  that  the  god  of  the  j 
community  is  concerned,  and  that  it  is  by  a  repre- 1 
sentative  of  the  community  that  those  desires  are 
offered  up  in  prayer,  and  that  the  community  may 
join  in.     The  appeal  to  facts  shows,  also,  that  an 
individual  may  put  up  individual  petitions,  as  when 
a  Yebu  will  pray :   "  God  in  heaven  protect  me  from 
sickness  and  death.     God  give  me  happiness  and 
wisdom."     But  we  may  safely  infer  that  the  only\ 
prayers  that  the  god  of  the  community  is  expected 
to  harken  to  are  prayers  that  are  consistent  with  the 
interests  and  welfare  of  the  community. 

From  that  point  of  view  we  must  refuse  to  give 
more  than  a  guarded  assent  to  the  "  opinion  that 
prayer  appeared  in  the  religion  of  the  lower  culture, 
but  that  in  this  its  earlier  stage  it  was  unethical" 
(Tylor,  364).  Prayer  obviously  does  appear  in  the 
religion  of  the  lower  culture,  but  to  say  that  it 
there  is  unethical  is  to  make  a  statement  which  re- 
quires defining.  The  statement  means  what  Pro- 


148  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

fessor  Tylor  expresses  later  on  in  the  words:  "It 
scarcely  appears  as  though  any  savage  prayer, 
authentically  native  in  its  origin,  were  ever  directed 
to  obtain  moral  goodness  or  to  ask  pardon  for 
moral  sin"  (p.  373).  But  it  might  be  misunderstood 
to  mean  that  among  savages  it  was  customary  or 
possible  to  pray  for  things  recognised  by  the  savage 
himself  as  wrong,  and  condemned  by  the  com- 
munity at  large.  In  the  first  place,  however,  the 
god  of  the  community  simply  as  being  the  god  of  the 
community  would  not  tolerate  such  prayers.  Next, 
the  range  and  extent  of  savage  morality  is  less  exten- 
sive than  it  is  —  or  at  any  rate  than  it  ought  to  be 
—  in  our  day;  and  though  we  must  recognise  and 
at  the  right  time  insist  upon  the  difference,  that  ought 
not  to  make  us  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the 
savage  does  pray  to  do  the  things  which  savage 
morality  holds  it  incumbent  on  him  to  do,  for  in- 
stance to  fight  bravely  for  the  good  of  his  wife,  his 
children,  and  his  tribe,  to  carry  out  the  duty  of 
avenging  murder.  And  if  he  prays  for  wealth  he 
also  prays  for  wisdom;  if  he  prays  that  his  god  may 
deliver  him  from  sickness,  that  shows  he  is  human 
rather  than  that  he  is  a  low  type  of  humanity. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  though  in  religions  of  low 


PRAYER  149 

culture  we  meet  religion  under  the  guise  of  desire, 
we  also  find  that  religion  makes  a  distinction  be- 
tween desires;  there  are  desires  which  may  be 
expressed  to  the  god  of  the  community,  and  desires 
which  may  not.  Further,  though  it  is  in  the  heart 
of  a  person  and  an  individual  that  desire  must  origi- 
nate, it  does  not  follow  that  prayer  originates  in 
individual  desire.  To  say  so,  we  must  assume  that 
the  same  desire  cannot  possibly  originate  simul- 
taneously in  different  persons.  But  that  is  a  patently 
erroneous  assumption:  in  time  of  war,  the  desire 
for  victory  will  spring  up  simultaneously  in  the 
hearts  of  all  the  tribe;  in  time  of  drought,  the 
prayer  for  rain  will  ascend  from  the  hearts  of  all 
the  people ;  at  the  time  of  the  sowing  of  seed  a  prayer 
for  "the  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth"  may  be  uttered 
by  every  member  of  the  community.  Now  it  is 
precisely  these  desires,  which  being  desires  must 
originate  in  individual  souls,  yet  being  desires  of 
every  individual  in  the  community  are  the  desires 
of  the  community,  that  are  the  desires  which  take 
the  form  of  prayer  offered  by  the  community  or  its 
representative  to  the  god  of  the  community.  Anti- 
social desires  cannot  be  expressed  by  the  community 
or  sanctioned  by  religion.  Prayer  is  the  essential 


150  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

expression  of  true  socialism;  and  the  spirit  which 
prompts  it  is  and  has  always  been  the  moving  spirit 
of  social  progress. 

Professor  Tylor,  noticing  the  "extreme  develop- 
ment of  mechanical  religion,  the  prayer-mill  of  the 
Tibetan  Buddhists,"  suggests  that  it  "may  perhaps 
lead  us  to  form  an  opinion  of  large  application  in 
the  study  of  religion  and  superstition;  namely,  that 
the  theory  of  prayers  may  explain  the  origin  of 
charms.  Charm-formulae,"  he  says,  "are  in  very 
many  cases  actual  prayers,  and  as  such  are  intelli- 
gible. Where  they  are  mere  verbal  forms,  producing 
their  effect  on  nature  and  man  by  some  unexplained 
process,  may  not  they  or  the  types  they  have  been 
modelled  on  have  been  originally  prayers,  since 
dwindled  into  mystic  sentences  ? "  (P.  C.  II, 
372-373).  Now,  if  this  suggestion  of  Professor 
Tylor 's  be  correct,  it  will  follow  that  as  charms  and 
spells  are  degraded  survivals  of  prayer,  so  magic 
generally  —  of  which  charms  and  spells  are  but  one 
department  —  is  a  degradation  of  religion.  That 
in  many  cases  charms  and  spells  are  survivals  of 
prayer  —  formulae  from  which  all  spirit  of  religion 
has  entirely  evaporated  —  all  students  of  the  science 
of  religion  would  now  admit.  That  prayers  may 


PRAYER  151 

stiffen  into  traditional  formulae,  and  then  become 
vain  repetitions  which  may  actually  be  unintelligible 
to  those  who  utter  them,  and  so  be  conceived  to 
have  a  force  which  is  purely  magical  and  a  "nature 
practically  assimilated  more  or  less  to  that  of 
charms"  (I.e.),  is  a  fact  which  cannot  be  denied. 
But  when  once  the  truth  has  been  admitted  that 
prayers  may  pass  into  spells,  the  possibility  is  sug- 
gested that  it  is  out  of  spells  that  prayer  has 
originated.  Mercury  raised  to  a  high  temperature 
becomes  red  precipitate ;  and  red  precipitate  exposed 
to  a  still  greater  heat  becomes  mercury  again.  Spells 
may  be  the  origin  of  prayers,  if  prayers  show  a 
tendency  to  relapse  into  spells.  That  possibility  fits 
in  either  with  the  theory  that  magic  preceded  re- 
ligion or  still  more  exactly  with  the  theory  that 
religion  simply  is  magic  raised,  so  to  speak,  to  a 
higher  moral  temperature.  We  have  therefore  to 
consider  the  possibility  that  the  process  of  evolution 
has  been  from  spell  to  prayer  (R.  R.  Marett,  Folk- 
Lore  XV,  2,  pp.  132-166);  and  let  us  begin  the 
consideration  by  observing  that  the  reverse  passage — 
from  prayer  to  spell  —  is  only  possible  on  the  con- 
dition that  religion  evaporates  entirely  in  the  process. 
The  prayer  does  not  become  a  charm  until  the 


152  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

religion  has  disappeared  entirely  from  it:  a  charm 
therefore  is  that  in  which  no  religion  is,  and  out  of 
which  consequently  no  religion  can  be  extracted. 
If  then,  per  impossibile,  it  could  be  demonstrated 
that  there  was  a  period  in  the  history  of  mankind, 
when  charms  and  magic  existed,  and  religion  was 
utterly  unknown ;  if  it  be  argued  that  the  spirit  of 
religion,  when  at  length  it  breathed  upon  mankind, 
transformed  spells  into  prayers — still  all  that  would 
then  be  maintained  is  that  spoken  formulas  which 
were  spells  were  followed  by  other  formulae  which 
are  the  very  opposite  of  spells.  Must  we  not,  how- 
ever, go  one  step  further  and  admit  that  one  and 
the  same  form  of  words  may  be  prayer  and  religion 
when  breathed  in  one  spirit,  and  vain  repetition  and 
mere  magic  when  uttered  in  another  ?  Let  us  admit 
that  the  difference  between  prayer  and  spell  lies  in 
the  difference  of  the  spirit  inspiring  them;  and  then 
we  shall  see  that  the  difference  is  essential,  funda- 
mental, as  little  to  be  ignored  as  it  is  impossible 
to  bridge. 

The  formula  used  by  the  person  employing  it  to 
express  his  desire  may  or  may  not  in  itself  suffice  to 
show  whether  it  is  religious  in  intent  and  value. 
Thus  in  West  Africa  the  women  of  Framin  dance 


PRAYER  I 53 

and  sing,  "Our  husbands  have  gone  to  Ashantee 
land;  may  they  sweep  their  enemies  off  the  face 
of  the  earth"  (Frazer,  Golden  Bough,2  I,  34).  We 
may  compare  the  song  sung  in  time  of  war  by  the 
Masai  women :  "  O  God,  to  whom  I  pray  for  off- 
spring, may  our  children  return  hither"  (Hollis, 
p.  351);  and  there  seems  no  reason  why,  since  the 
Masai  song  is  religious,  the  Framin  song  may  not  be 
regarded  as  religious  also.  But  we  have  to  remember 
that  both  prayers  and  spells  have  a  setting  of  their 
own :  the  desires  which  they  express  manifest  them- 
selves not  only  in  what  is  said  but  in  what  is  done; 
and,  when  we  enquire  what  the  Framin  women 
do  whilst  they  sing  the  words  quoted  above,  we  find 
that  they  dance  with  brushes  in  their  hands.  The 
brushes  are  quite  as  essential  as  the  words.  It 
is  therefore  suggested  that  the  whole  ceremony  is 
magical,  that  the  sweeping  is  sympathetic  magic 
and  the  song  is  a  spell.  The  words  explain  what  the 
action  is  intended  to  effect,  just  as  in  New  Caledonia 
when  a  man  has  kindled  a  smoky  fire  and  has 
performed  certain  acts,  he  "invokes  his  ancestors 
and  says,  '  Sun  !  I  do  this  that  you  may  be  burning 
hot,  and  eat  up  all  the  clouds  in  the  sky'"  (Frazer, 
ib.j  116).  Again,  amongst  the  Masai  in  time  of 


154  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

drought  a  charm  called  ol-kora  is  thrown  into  a  fire ; 
the  old  men  encircle  the  fire  and  sing :  — 

"  God  of  the  rain-cloud,  slake  our  thirst, 
We  know  thy  far-extending  powers, 
As  herdsmen  lead  their  kine  to  drink, 
Refresh  us  with  thy  cooling  showers." 

—  HOLLIS,  p.  348. 

If  the  ol-kora  which  is  thrown  into  the  fire  makes 
it  rise  in  clouds  of  smoke,  resembling  the  rain- 
clouds  which  are  desired,  then  here  too  the  cere- 
mony taken  as  a  whole  presents  the  appearance 
of  a  magical  rite  accompanied  by  a  spoken  spell. 
It  is  true  that  in  this  case  the  ceremony  is  reenforced 
by  an  appeal  to  a  god,  just  as  in  the  New  Caledonian 
case  it  is  reenforced  by  an  appeal  to  ancestor  worship. 
But  this  may  be  explained  as  showing  that  here  we 
have  magic  and  charms  being  gradually  superseded 
by  religion  and  prayer ;  the  old  formula  and  the  old 
rite  are  in  process  of  being  suffused  by  a  new  spirit, 
the  spirit  of  religion,  which  is  the  very  negation  and 
ultimately  the  destruction  of  the  old  spirit  of  magic. 
Before  accepting  this  interpretation,  however, 
which  is  intended  to  show  the  priority  of  magic  to 
religion,  we  may  notice  that  it  is  not  the  only  inter- 
pretation of  which  the  facts  are  susceptible.  It  is 


PRAYER  155 

based  on  the  assumption  that  the  words  uttered  are 
intended  as  an  explanation  of  the  meaning  of  the 
acts  performed.  If  that  assumption  is  correct,  then 
the  performer  of  the  ceremony  is  explaining  its  mean- 
ing and  intention  to  somebody.  To  whom  ?  In  the 
case  of  the  New  Caledonian  ceremony,  to  the  an- 
cestral spirits;  in  the  case  of  the  Masai  old  men, 
to  the  god.  Thus,  the  religious  aspect  of  the  cere- 
mony appears  after  all  to  be  an  essential  part  of  the 
ceremony,  and  not  a  new  element  in  an  old  rite. 
And,  then,  we  may  consistently  argue  that  the  Fra- 
min  women  who  sing,  "Our  husbands  have  gone 
to  Ashantee  land;  may  they  sweep  their  enemies 
off  the  face  of  the  earth,"  are  either  still  conscious 
that  they  are  addressing  a  prayer  to  their  native 
god;  or  that,  if  they  are  no  longer  conscious  of  the 
fact,  they  once  were,  and  what  was  originally 
prayer  has  become  by  vain  repetition  a  mere  spell. 
All  this  is  on  the  assumption  that  in  these  cere- 
monies, the  words  are  intended  to  explain  the  mean- 
ing of  the  acts  performed,  and  therefore  to  explain 
it  to  somebody,  peradventure  he  will  understand 
and  grant  the  performer  of  the  ceremony  his  heart's 
desire.  But,  as  the  consequences  of  the  assumption 
do  not  favour  the  theory  that  prayer  must  be  pre- 


156  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

ceded  by  spell,  let  us  discard  the  assumption  that  the 
words  explain  the  meaning  of  the  acts  performed. 
\  Let  us  consider  the  possibility  that  perhaps  the 
1  actions  which  are  gone  through  are  meant  to  explain 
i  the  words  and  make  them  more  forcible.  It  is  unde- 
niable that  in  moments  of  emotion  we  express  our- 
selves by  gesture  and  the  play  of  our  features  as 
well  as  by  our  words ;  indeed,  in  reading  a  play  we 
are  apt  to  miss  the  full  meaning  of  the  words  simply 
because  they  are  not  assisted  and  interpreted  by  the 
actor's  gestures  and  features.  If  we  take  up  this 
position,  that  the  things  done  are  explanatory  of  the 
words  uttered  and  reenforce  them,  then  the  sweeping 
which  is  acted  by  the  Framin  women  again  is  not 
magical;  it  simply  emphasises  the  words,  "may 
they  sweep  their  enemies  off  the  face  of  the  earth," 
and  shows  to  the  power  appealed  to  what  it  is  that  is 
desired.  The  smoke  sent  up  by  the  New  Caledonian 
ancestor  worshipper  or  the  Masai  old  men  is  a  way 
of  indicating  the  clouds  which  they  wish  to  attract 
or  avert  respectively.  An  equally  clear  case  comes 
from  the  Kei  Islands:  "When  the  warriors  have 
departed,  the  women  return  indoors  and  bring  out 
certain  baskets  containing  fruits  and  stones.  These 
fruits  and  stones  they  anoint  and  place  on  a  board, 


PRAYER  157 

murmuring  as  they  do  so,  '  O  lord  sun,  moon,  let 
the  bullets  rebound  from  our  husbands,  brothers, 
betrothed,  and  other  relations,  just  as  raindrops  re- 
bound from  these  objects  which  are  smeared  with 
oil'"  (Frazer,  op.  cit.,  p.  33).  It  is,  I  think,  perfectly 
reasonable  to  regard  the  act  performed  as  explana- 
tory of  the  words  uttered  and  of  the  thing  desired; 
the  women  themselves  explain  to  their  lords,  the  sun 
and  moon,  —  with  the  precision  natural  to  women 
when  explaining  what  they  want,  —  exactly  how  they 
want  the  bullets  to  bounce  off,  just  like  raindrops. 
Dr.  Frazer,  however,  from  whom  I  have  quoted  this 
illustration,  not  having  perhaps  considered  the  pos- 
sibility that  the  acts  performed  may  be  explanatory 
of  the  words,  is  compelled  to  explain  the  action  as 
magical:  "in  this  custom  the  ceremony  of  anointing 
stones  in  order  that  the  bullets  may  recoil  from  the 
men  like  raindrops  from  the  stones  is  a  piece  of  pure 
sympathetic  or  imitative  magic."  He  is  therefore 
compelled  to  suggest  that  the  prayer  to  the  sun  is  a 
prayer  that  he  will  give  effect  to  the  charm,  and  is 
perhaps  a  later  addition.  But  independently  of  the 
possibility  that  the  actions  performed  are  explana- 
tory of  the  words,  or  rather  that  words  and  actions 
both  are  intended  to  make  clear  to  the  sun  precisely 


158  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

what  the  petition  is,  what  tells  against  Dr.  Frazer's  sug- 
gestion is  that  the  women  want  the  bullets  to  bounce  off, 
and  it  is  the  power  of  the  god  to  which  they  appeal 
and  on  which  they  rely  for  the  fulfilment  of  their  prayer. 
There  is,  however,  a  further  consideration  which 
we  should  perhaps  take  into  account.  Man,  when 
he  has  a  desire  which  he  wishes  to  realise,  —  and 
the  whole  of  our  life  is  spent  in  trying  to  realise 
what  we  wish, — takes  all  the  steps  which  experience 
shows  to  be  necessary  or  reason  suggests;  and,  when 
he  has  done  everything  that  he  can  do,  he  may  still 
feel  that  nothing  is  certain  in  this  life,  and  the  thing 
may  not  come  off.  Under  those  circumstances  he 
may,  and  often  does,  pray  that  success  may  attend 
his  efforts.  Now  Dr.  Frazer,  in  the  second  edition 
of  his  Golden  Bough,  wishing  to  show  that  the  period 
of  religion  was  preceded  by  a  non-religious  period  in 
the  history  of  mankind,  suggests  that  at  first  man 
had  no  idea  that  his  attempts  to  realise  his  desires 
could  fail,  and  that  it  was  his  "  tardy  recognition " 
of  the  fact  that  led  him  to  religion.  This  tardy 
recognition,  he  says,  probably  "proceeded  very 
slowly,  and  required  long  ages  for  its  more  or  less 
perfect  accomplishment.  For  the  recognition  of 
man's  powerlessness  to  influence  the  course  of 


PRAYER  159 

nature  on  a  grand  scale  must  have  been  gradual" 
(I,  78).  I  would  suggest,  however,  that  it  cannot 
have  taken  "long  ages"  for  savage  man  to  discover 
that  his  wishes  and  his  plans  did  not  always  come 
off.  It  is,  I  think,  going  too  far  to  imagine  that 
for  long  ages  man  had  no  idea  that  his  attempts  to 
realise  his  desires  could  fail.  If  religion  arises,  as 
Dr.  Frazer  suggests,  when  man  recognises  his  own 
weakness  and  his  own  powerlessness,  often,  to  effect 
what  he  most  desires,  then  man  in  his  most  primi- 
tive and  most  helpless  condition  must  have  been 
most  ready  to  recognise  that  there  were  powers 
other  than  himself,  and  to  desire,  that  is  to  pray 
for,  their  assistance.  Doubtless  it  would  be  at  the 
greater  crises,  times  of  pestilence,  drought,  famine 
and  war,  that  his  prayers  would  be  most  insistent; 
but  it  is  in  the  period  of  savagery  that  famine  is  most 
frequent  and  drought  most  to  be  feared.  Against 
them  he  takes  all  the  measures  known  to  him,  all 
the  practical  steps  which  natural  science,  as  under- 
stood by  him,  can  suggest.  Now  his  theory  and 
practice  include  many  things  which,  though  they  are 
in  later  days  regarded  as  uncanny  and  magical,  are 
to  him  the  ordinary  natural  means  of  producing  the 
effects  which  he  desires.  But  when  he  has  taken  all 


160  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

the  steps  which  practical  reason  suggests,  and  ex- 
perience of  the  past  approves,  savage  man,  harassed 
by  the  dread  of  approaching  drought  or  famine,  may 
still  breathe  out  the  Manganja  prayer,  "  Hear  thou, 

0  God,  and  send  rain."     When,  however,  he  does 
so,  it  is,  I  suggest,  doubly  erroneous  to  infer  that 

I  this  prayer  takes  the  place  of  a  spell  or  that  apart 
i  from  the  prayer  the  acts  performed  are,  and  origi- 
'  nally  were,  magical.     These  acts  may  be  based  on  the 
principle  that  like  produces  like  and  maybe  performed 
as  the  ordinary,  natural  means  for  producing  the  effect, 
which  have  nothing  magical  about  them.    And  they  are 
accompanied  by  a  prayer  which  is  not  a  mere  explana- 
tion or  statement  of  the  purpose  with  which  the  acts  are 
performed,  but  is  the  expression  of  the  heart's  desire. 
No  a  priori  proofs  of  any  cogency,  therefore,  have 
been  adduced  by  Dr.  Frazer,  and  none  therefore  are 
likely  to  be  produced  by  any  one  else,  to  show  that 
there  was  ever  a  period  in  the  history  of  man  when 
J  prayers  and  religion  were  unknown  to  him.     The 
question  remains  whether  any  actual  instances  are 
known  to  the  science  of  religion.     Unfortunately,  as 

1  pointed  out  at  the  beginning  of  this  lecture,  so 
neglected   by  the  science  of  religion  has  been  the 
subject  of   prayer  that  even  now  we  are  scarcely 


PRAYER  l6l 

able  to  go  beyond  the  statement  made  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  by  Professor  Tylor  that, 
"at  low  levels  of  civilisation  there  are  many  races 
who  distinctly  admit  the  existence  of  spirits,  but  are 
not  certainly  known  to  pray  to  them  even  in  thought " 
(P.  C.  II,  364).  Professor  Tylor's  statement  is  pro- 
perly guarded :  there  are  races  not  certainly  known 
to  pray.  The  possibility  that  they  may  yet  be  dis- 
covered to  make  prayers  is  not  excluded. 

Now,  if  we  turn  to  one  of  the  lowest  levels  of 
culture,  that  of  the  Australian  black  fellows,  we 
shall  find  that  there  is  much  doubt  amongst  students 
whether  the  "aborigines  have  consciously  any 
form  of  religion  whatever"  (Howitt,  Native  Tribes 
of  S.  E.  Australia),  and  in  southeast  Australia 
Mr.  Howitt  thinks  it  cannot  be  alleged  that  they 
have,  though  their  beliefs  are  such  that  they 
might  easily  have  developed  into  an  actual  religion 
(p.  507).  Now  one  of  the  tribes  of  southeast  Aus- 
tralia is  that  of  the  Dieri.  With  them  rain  is  very 
important,  for  periods  of  drought  are  frequent; 
and  "rain-making  ceremonies  are  considered  of 
much  consequence"  (p.  394).  The  ceremonies 
are  symbolic:  there  is  "blood  to  symbolise  the 
rain"  and  two  large  stones  "representing  gathering 


1 62  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

clouds  presaging  rain,"  just  as  the  New  Caledonian 
sends  up  clouds  of  smoke  to  symbolise  rain-clouds, 
and  the  Masai,  we  have  conjectured,  throw  ol-kora 
into  the  fire  for  the  same  purpose.  But  the  New 
Caledonian  not  only  performs  the  actions  prescribed 
for  the  rite,  he  also  invokes  the  spirits  of  his  an- 
cestors; and  the  Masai  not  only  go  through  the 
proper  dance,  but  call  upon  the  god  of  the  rain-cloud. 
The  Dieri,  however,  ought  to  be  content  with  their 
symbolic  or  sympathetic  magic  and  not  offer  up 
any  prayer.  But,  being  unaware  of  this  fact,  they 
do  pray:  they  call  "upon  the  rain-making  Mura- 
muras  to  give  them  power  to  make  a  heavy  rain- 
fall, crying  out  in  loud  voices  the  impoverished 
state  of  the  country,  and  the  half-starved  condition 
of  the  tribe,  in  consequence  of  the  difficulty  in  pro- 
curing food  in  sufficient  quantity  to  preserve  life" 
(p.  394).  The  Mura-muras  seem  to  be  ancestral 
spirits,  like  those  invoked  by  the  New  Caledonian. 
If  we  turn  to  the  Euahlayi  tribe  of  northwestern 
New  South  Wales,  we  find  that  at  the  Boorah  rites 
a  prayer  is  offered  to  Byamee,  "asking  him  to  let 
the  blacks  live  long,  for  they  have  been  faithful 
to  his  charge  as  shown  by  the  observance  of  the 
Boorah  ceremony"  (L.  Parker,  The  Euahlayi 


PRAYER  163 

Tribe,  p.  79).  That  is  the  prayer  of  the  community 
to  Byamee,  and  is  in  conformity  with  what  we  have 
noted  before,  viz.  that  it  is  with  the  desires  of  the 
community  that  the  god  of  the  community  is  con- 
cerned. Another  prayer,  the  nature  of  which  is  not 
stated  by  Mrs.  Parker,  by  whom  the  information  is 
given  us,  is  put  up  at  funerals,  presumably  to 
Byamee  by  the  community  or  its  representative. 
Mrs.  Parker  adds:  "Though  we  say  that  actually 
these  people  have  but  two  attempts  at  prayers, 
one  at  the  grave  and  one  at  the  inner  Boorah  ring, 
I  think  perhaps  we  are  wrong.  When  a  man  in- 
vokes aid  on  the  eve  of  battle,  or  in  his  hour  of 
danger  and  need;  when  a  woman  croons  over  her 
baby  an  incantation  to  keep  him  honest  and  true, 
and  that  he  shall  be  spared  in  danger,  —  surely  these 
croonings  are  of  the  nature  of  prayers  born  of  the 
same  elementary  frame  of  mind  as  our  more  elabo- 
rate litanies."  As  an  instance  of  the  croonings 
Mrs.  Parker  gives  the  mother's  song  over  her  baby, 
as  soon  as  it  begins  to  crawl:  — 

"Kind  be, 
Do  not  steal, 

Do  not  touch  what  to  another  belongs, 
Leave  all  such  alone, 
Kind  be." 


164  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

These  instances  may  suffice  to  show  that  it  would 
not  have  been  safe  to  infer,  a  year  or  two  ago,  from 
the  fact  that  the  Australians  were  not  known  to  pray, 
that  therefore  prayer  was  unknown  to  them.  Indeed, 
we  may  safely  go  farther  and  surmise  that  other 
instances  besides  those  noted  really  exist,  though 
they  have  not  been  observed  or  if  observed  have 
not  been  understood.  Among  the  northern  tribes 
of  central  Australia  rites  are  performed  to  secure 
food,  just  as  they  are  performed  by  the  Dieri  to 
avert  drought.  The  Dieri  rites  are  accompanied 
by  a  prayer,  as  we  have  seen.  The  Kaitish  rites 
to  promote  the  growth  of  grass  are  accompanied 
by  the  singing  of  words,  which  "have  no  meaning 
known  to  the  natives  of  the  present  day"  (Spencer 
and  Gillen,  Northern  Tribes,  p.  292).  Amongst 
the  Mara  tribe  the  rain-making  rite  consists  simply 
in  "singing"  the  water,  drinking  it  and  spitting  it 
out  in  all  directions.  In  the  Anula  tribe  "dugongs 
are  a  favourite  article  of  food,"  and  if  the  natives 
desire  to  bring  them  out  from  the  rocks,  they  "can 
do  so  by  ' singing'  and  throwing  sticks  at  the  rocks" 
(ib.,  pp.  313,  314).  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
in  all  these  cases  the  "singing"  is  now  merely  a 
charm.  But  if  we  remember  that  prayers,  when 


PRAYER  165 

their  meaning  is  forgotten,  pass  by  vain  repetitions 
into  mere  charms,  we  may  also  reasonably  suppose 
that  these  Australian  charms  are  degraded  prayers; 
and  we  shall  be  confirmed  in  this  supposition  to 
some  extent  by  the  fact  that  in  the  Kaitish  tribes 
the  words  sung  "have  no  meaning  known  to  the 
natives  of  the  present  day."  If  the  meaning  has 
evaporated,  the  religion  may  have  evaporated  with 
it.  That  the  rites,  of  which  the  "singing"  is  an 
essential  part,  have  now  become  magical  and  are 
used  and  understood  to  be  practised  purely  to  pro- 
mote the  supply  of  dugongs  and  other  articles  of 
food,  may  be  freely  admitted;  but  it  is  unsafe  to 
infer  that  the  purpose  with  which  the  rites  continue 
to  be  practised  is  the  whole  of  the  purpose  with 
which  they  were  originally  performed.  If  the 
meaning  of  the  "singing"  has  passed  entirely  away, 
the  meaning  of  the  rites  may  have  suffered  a  change. 
At  the  present  day  the  rite  is  understood  to  increase 
the  supply  of  dugongs  or  other  articles  of  food. 
But  it  may  have  been  used  originally  for  other 
purposes.  Presumably  rites  of  a  similar  kind, 
certainly  of  some  kind,  are  practised  by  the  Aus- 
tralians who  have  for  their  totem  the  blow-fly,  the 
water-beetle,  or  the  evening  star.  But  they  do  not 


1 66  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

eat  flies  or  beetles.  Their  original  purpose  in  choos- 
ing the  evening  star  cannot  have  been  to  increase 
its  number.  Nor  can  that  have  been  the  object  of 
choosing  the  mosquito  for  a  totem.  But  if  the 
object  of  the  rites  is  not  to  increase  the  number  of 
mosquitoes,  flies,  and  beetles,  it  need  not  in  the  first 
instance  have  been  the  object  with  which  the  rites 
were  celebrated  in  the  case  of  other  totems. 

Let  us  now  return  to  Professor  Tylor's  statement 
that  aat  low  levels  of  civilisation  there  are  many 
races  who  distinctly  admit  the  existence  of  spirits, 
but  are  not  certainly  known  to  pray  to  them  even 
in  thought."  The  number  of  those  races  who  are 
not  known  to  pray  is  being  reduced,  as  we  have  seen. 
And  I  think  we  may  go  even  farther  than  that  and 
say  that  where  the  existence  of  spirits  is  not  merely 
believed  in,  but  is  utilised  for  the  purpose  of  estab- 
lishing permanent  relations  between  a  community 
and  a  spirit,  we  may  safely  infer  that  the  community 
offers  prayer  to  the  spirit,  even  though  the  fact 
may  have  escaped  the  notice  of  travellers.  The 
reason  why  we  may  infer  it  is  that  at  the  lower  levels 
of  civilisation  we  meet  with  religion,  in  Hoffding's 
words,  "in  the  guise  of  desire."  We  may  put  the 
same  truth  in  other  words  and  say  that  religion  is 


PRAYER  167 

from  the  beginning  practical.  Such  prayers  as  are 
known  to  us  to  be  put  up  by  the  lowest  races  are 
always  practical:  they  may  be  definite  petitions 
for  definite  goods  such  as  harvest  or  rain  or  victory 
in  time  of  war;  or  they  may  be  general  petitions 
such  as  that  of  the  Khonds:  "We  are  ignorant  of 
what  it  is  good  for  us  to  ask  for.  You  know  what 
is  good  for  us.  Give  it  us."  But  in  any  case  what 
the  god  of  a  community  is  there  for  is  to  promote 
the  good  of  the  community.  It  is  because  the  savage 
has  petitions  to  put  up  that  he  believes  there  are 
powers  who  can  grant  his  petitions.  Prayer  is  the 
very  root  of  religion.  When  the  savage  has  taken 
every  measure  he  knows  of  to  produce  the  result  he 
desires,  he  then  goes  on  to  pray  for  the  rainfall  he 
desires,  crying  out  in  a  loud  voice  "the  impoverished 
state  of  the  country  and  the  half-starved  condition 
of  the  tribe."  It  is  true  that  it  is  in  moments  of 
stress  particularly,  if  not  solely,  that  the  savage  turns 
to  his  god  —  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  many 
of  us  —  but  it  is  with  confidence  and  hope  that  he 
turns  to  him.  If  he  had  no  confidence  and  no  hope, 
he  would  offer  no  prayers.  But  he  has  hope,  he  has 
faith;  and  every  time  he  prays  his  heart  says,  if  his 
words  do  not,  "in  Thee,  Lord,  do  we  put  our  trust." 


1 68  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

That  prayer  is  the  essence,  the  very  breath,  of 
religion,  without  which  it  dies,  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  amongst  the  very  lowest  races  of  mankind 
we  find  frequent  traditions  of  the  existence  of  a 
high  god  or  supreme  being,  the  creator  of  the  world 
and  the  father  of  mankind.  The  numerous  traces 
of  this  dying  tradition  have  been  collected  by  the 
untiring  energy  and  the  unrivalled  knowledge  of 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang  in  his  book,  Tfa^MMngjof 
Religion.  In  West  Africa  Dr.  Nassau  (Fetichism 
in  West  Africa,  pp.  36  ff.)  "hundreds  of  times" 
(p.  37)  has  found  that  "they  know  of  a  Being 
superior  to  themselves,  of  whom  they  themselves," 
he  says,  "inform  me  that  he  is  the  Maker  and  the 
Father."  What  is  characteristic  of  the  belief  of 
the  savages  in  this  god  is  that,  in  Dr.  Nassau's 
words,  "it  is  an  accepted  belief,  but  it  does  not  often 
influence  their  life.  '  God  is  not  in  all  their  thought.' 
In  practice  they  give  Him  no  worship."  The  belief 
is  in  fact  a  dying  tradition;  and  it  is  dying  because 
prayer  is  not  offered  to  this  remote  and  traditional 
god.  I  say  that  the  belief  is  a  dying  tradition,  and 
I  say  so  because  its  elements,  which  are  all  found 
present  and  active  where  a  community  believes 
in,  prays  to,  and  worships  the  god  of  the  community, 


PRAYER  169 

are  found  partially,  but  only  partially,  present  where 
the  belief  survives  but  as  a  tradition.  Thus,  for 
instance,  where  the  belief  is  fully  operative,  the  god 
of  the  community  sanctions  the  morality  of  the 
community;  but  sometimes  where  the  belief  has 
become  merely  traditional,  this  traditional  god  is 
supposed  to  take  no  interest  in  the  community  and 
exercises  no  ethical  influence  over  the  community. 
Thus,  in  West  Africa,  Nyankupon  is  "  ignored 
rather  than  worshipped."  In  the  Andaman  Islands, 
on  the  other  hand,  where  the  god  Puluga  is  still 
angered  by  sin  or  wrong-doing,  he  is  pitiful  to  those 
in  pain  or  distress  and  "  sometimes  deigns  to  afford 
relief"  (Lang  p,  212  quoting  Man,  J.  A.  /.,  XII, 
158).  Again,  where  the  belief  in  the  god  of  the 
community  is  fully  operative,  the  occasions  on 
which  the  prayers  of  the  community  are  offered  are 
also  the  occasions  on  which  sacrifice  is  made. 
Where  sacrifice  and  prayers  are  not  offered,  the 
belief  may  still  for  a  time  survive,  at  is  does  among 
the  Fuegians.  They  make  no  sacrifice  and,  as 
far  as  is  known,  offer  no  prayers ;  but  to  kill  a  man 
brings  down  the  wrath  of  their  god,  the  big  man  in 
the  woods:  "Rain  come  down,  snow  come  down, 
hail  come  down,  wind  blow,  blow,  very  much  blow. 


1 70  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Very  bad  to  kill  man.  Big  man  in  woods  no  like 
it,  he  very  angry"  (Lang,  p.  188,  quoting  Fitzroy, 
II,  1 80).  But  when  sacrifice  and  prayer  cease, 
the  ultimate  outcome  is  that  which  is  found  amongst 
the  West  African  natives,  who,  as  Dr.  Nassau  tells 
us  (p.  38),  say  with  regard  to  Anzam,  whom  they 
admit  to  be  their  Creator  and  Father,  "Why  should 
we  care  for  him?  He  does  not  help  nor  harm  us. 
It  is  the  spirits  who  can  harm  us  whom  we  fear 
and  worship,  and  for  whom  we  care."  Who  the 
spirits  are  Dr.  Nassau  does  not  say,  but  they  must 
be  either  the  other  gods  of  the  place  or  the  fetich 
spirits.  And  the  reason  why  Anzam  is  no  longer 
'  believed  to  help  or  harm  the  natives  is  obviously 
that,  from  some  cause  or  other,  there  is  now  no 
longer  any  established  form  of  worship  of  him. 
The  community  of  which  he  was  originally  the  god 
may  have  broken  up,  or  more  probably  may  have 
been  broken  up,  with  the  result  that  the  congrega- 
tion which  met  to  offer  prayer  and  sacrifice  to  Anzam 
was  scattered;  and  the  memory  of  him  alone 
survives.  Nothing  would  be  more  natural,  then, 
than  that  the  natives,  when  asked  by  Dr.  Nassau, 
"Why  do  you  not  worship  him?"  (p.  38),  should 
invent  a  reason,  viz.  that  it  is  no  use  worshipping 


PRAYER  171 

him  now  —  the  truth  being  that  the  form  of  wor- 
ship has  perished  for  reasons  now  no  longer  present 
to  the  natives'  mind.  In  any  case,  when  prayers 
cease  to  be  offered  —  whether  because  the  com- 
munity is  broken  up  or  because  some  new  quarter 
is  discovered  to  which  prayers  can  be  offered  with 
greater  hope  of  success  —  when  prayers,  for  any 
reason,  do  cease  to  be  offered  to  a  god,  the  worship 
of  him  begins  to  cease  also,  for  the  breath  of  life 
has  departed  from  it. 

In  this  lecture,  as  my  subject  is  primitive  religion, 
I  have  made  no  attempt  to  trace  the  history  of 
prayer  farther  than  the  highest  point  which  it  reaches 
in  the  lower  levels  of  religion.  That  is  the  point 
reached  by  the  Khond  prayer:  "We  are  ignorant 
of  what  it  is  good  to  ask  for.  You  know  what  is 
good  for  us.  Give  it  us."  That  is  also  the  highest 
point  reached  by  the  most  religious  mind  amongst 
the  ancient  Greeks :  Socrates  prayed  the  gods  simply 
for  things  good,  because  the  gods  knew  best  what 
is  good  (Xen.,  Mem.,  I,  iii,  2).  The  general  impres- 
sion left  on  one's  mind  by  the  prayers  offered  in 
this  stage  of  religious  development  is  that  man  is 
here  and  the  gods  are  —  there.  But  "there"  is 
such  a  long  way  off.  And  yet,  far  off  as  it  is,  man 


172  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

never  came  to  think  it  was  so  far  off  that  the  gods 
could  not  hear.  The  possibility  of  man's  entering 
into  some  sort  of  communication  with  them  was 
always  present.  Nay !  more,  a  community  of 
interests  between  him  and  them  was  postulated: 
the  gods  were  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  com- 
munity, and  man  was  to  serve  the  gods.  On  oc- 
casions when  sacrifice  was  made  and  prayer  was 
offered,  the  worshippers  entered  into  the  presence 
of  God,  and  communion  with  Him  was  sought ;  but 
stress  was  laid  rather  on  the  sacrifice  offered  than 
on  the  prayers  sent  up.  The  communion  at  which 
animal  sacrifice  aimed  may  have  been  gross  at  times, 
and  at  others  mystic;  but  it  was  the  sacrifice  rather 
than  the  prayer  which  accompanied  it  that  was 
regarded  as  essential  to  the  communion  desired,  as 
the  means  of  bridging  the  gap  between  man  here 
and  the  gods  there.  If,  however,  the  gap  was  to  be 
bridged,  a  new  revelation  was  necessary,  one  re- 
vealing the  real  nature  of  the  sacrifice  required  by 
God,  and  of  the  communion  desired  by  man.  And 
that  revelation  is  made  in  Our  Lord's  Prayer. 
With  the  most  earnest  and  unfeigned  desire  to  use 
the  theory  of  evolution  as  a  means  of  ordering  the 
facts  of  the  history  of  religion  and  of  enabling  us  — 


PRAYER  173 

so  far  as  it  can  enable  us  —  to  understand  them, 
one  is  bound  to  notice  as  a  fact  that  the  theory  of 
evolution  is  unable  to  account  for  or  explain  the 
revelation,  made  in  Our  Lord's  Prayer,  of  the  spirit 
which  is  both  human  and  divine.  It  is  the  beam 
of  light  which,  when  turned  on  the  darkness  of  the 
past,  enables  us  to  see  whither  man  with  his  prayers 
and  his  sacrifices  had  been  blindly  striving,  the  place 
where  he  fain  would  be.  It  is  the  surest  beacon 
the  missionary  can  hold  out  to  those  who  are  still 
in  darkness  and  who  show  by  the  fact  that  they 
pray  —  if  only  for  rain,  for  harvest,  and  victory 
over  all  their  enemies  —  that  they  are  battling  with 
the  darkness  and  that  they  have  not  turned  entirely 
away  from  the  light  of  His  countenance  who  is 
never  at  any  time  far  from  any  one  of  us.  Their 
heart  within  them  is  ready  to  bear  witness.  Re- 
ligion is  present  in  them,  if  only  under  "the  guise  of 
desire";  but  it  is  "the  desire  of  all  nations"  for 
which  they  yearn. 

There   are,   Hoffding   says,    "two   tendencies   in 
the  nature  of  religious  feeling:    on  the  one  hand 
there  is  the  need  to  collect  and  concentrate  our-    / 
selves,  to  resign  ourselves,   to  feel  ourselves  sup- 
ported and  carried  by  a  power  raised  above  all 


174  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

struggle  and  opposition  and  beyond  all  change. 
But  within  the  religious  consciousness  another  need 
makes  itself  felt,  the  need  of  feeling  that  in  the 
midst  of  the  struggle  we  have  a  fellow-struggler  at 
our  side,  a  fellow-struggler  who  knows  from  his  own 
experience  what  it  is  to  suffer  and  meet  resistance" 
(The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  §  54).  Between  these 
two  tendencies  Hoffding  discovers  an  opposition 
or  contradiction,  an  "antinomy  of  religious  feeling." 
]  But  it  is  precisely  because  Christianity  alone  of  all 

I      I 

\  (  religions  recognises  both  needs  that  it  transcends 
the  antinomy.  The  antinomy  is  indeed  purely 
intellectual.  Hoffding  himself  says,  "only  when 
recollection,  collation,  and  comparison  are  possible 
do  we  discover  the  opposition  or  the  contradiction 
between  the  two  tendencies."  And  in  saying  that, 
inasmuch  as  recollection,  collation,  and  comparison 
are  intellectual  processes,  he  admits  that  the  an- 
tinomy is  intellectual.  That  it  is  not  an  antinomy 
of  religious  feeling  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the 
two  needs  exist,  that  is  to  say,  are  both  felt.  To 
say  a  priori  that  both  cannot  be  satisfied  is  useless 
in  face  of  the  fact  that  those  who  feel  them  find 
that  Christianity  satisfies  them. 


SACRIFICE 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  subject  of  prayer  has  been  strangely  neglected 
by  the  science  of  religion.  Religion,  in  whatever 
form  it  manifests  itself,  is  essentially  practical ;  man 
desires  to  enter  into  communication  or  into  commu- 
nion with  his  god,  and  in  so  doing  he  has  a  practical 
purpose  in  view.  That  purpose  may  be  to  secure  a 
material  blessing  of  a  particular  kind,  such  as  vic- 
tory in  war  or  the  enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  the  earth 
in  their  due  season,  or  the  purpose  may  be  to  offer 
thanks  for  a  harvest  and  to  pray  for  a  continuance 
of  prosperity  generally.  Or  the  purpose  of  prayer 
may  be  to  ask  for  deliverance  from  material  evils, 
such  as  famine  or  plague.  Or  it  may  be  to  ask  for 
deliverance  from  moral  evils  and  for  power  to  do 
God's  will.  In  a  word,  if  man  had  no  prayer  to 
make,  the  most  powerful,  if  not  the  only,  motive 
inciting  him  to  seek  communion  would  be  wanting. 
1  Now,  to  some  of  us  it  may  seem  £  priori  that  there 
is  no  reason  why  the  communion  thus  sought  in 


176  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

prayer  should  require  any  external  rite  to  sanction 
or  condition  it.  If  that  is  our  a  priori  view,  we 
shall  be  the  more  surprised  to  find  that  in  actual  fact 
an  external  rite  has  always  been  felt  to  be  essential; 
and  that  rite  has  always  been  and  still  is  sacrifice,  in 

I  one  or  other  of  its  forms.  Or,  to  put  the  same  fact 
in  another  way,  public  worship  has  been  from  the 
beginning  the  condition  without  which  private  wor- 
ship could  not  begin  and  without  which  private 

.  worship  cannot  continue.  To  any  form  of  religion, 
whatever  it  be,  it  is  essential,  if  it  is  to  be  religion, 
.  that  there  shall  be  a  community  of  worshippers  and 
a  god  worshipped.  The  bond  which  unites  the 
worshippers  with  one  another  and  with  their  god  i 
religion.  From  the  beginning  the  public  worshi 
in  which  the  worshippers  have  united  has  expressed 
itself  in  rites  —  rites  of  sacrifice  —  and  in  the  prayers 
of  the  community.  To  the  end,  the  prayers  offered 
are  prayers  to  "  Our  Father" ;  and  if  the  worshipper 
is  spatially  separated  from,  he  is  spiritually  united 
to,  his  fellow-worshippers  even  in  private  prayer. 
•>  We  may  then  recognise  that  prayer  logically  and 
ultimately  implies  sacrifice  in  one  or  other  of  its 
senses;  and  that  sacrifice  as  a  rite  is  meaningless 
and  impossible  without  prayer.  But  if  we  recognise 


SACRIFICE  177 

that  sacrifice  wherever  it  occurs  implies  prayer,  then 
the  fact  that  the  observers  of  savage  or  barbarous 
rites  have  described  the  ritual  acts  of  sacrifice,  but 
have  not  observed  or  have  neglected  to  report  the 
prayers  implied,  will  not  lead  us  into  the  error  of 
imagining  that  sacrifice  is  a  rite  which  can  exist  — 
that  it  can  have   a  religious  existence  —  without 
prayer.    We  may  attend  to  either,  the  sacrifice  or  to 
the  prayer,  as  we  may  attend  either  to  the  concav- 
ity or  the  convexity  of  a  curve,  but  we  may  not  deny 
the  existence  and  presence  of  the  one  because  our 
attention  happens  to  be  concentrated  on  the  other. 
The  relation  in  primitive  religion  of  the  one  to  the 
other  we  may  express  by  saying  that  prayer  states  the 
motive  with  which  the  sacrifice  is  made,  and  that 
sacrifice  is  essential  to  the  prayer,  which  would  not  I 
be  efficacious  without  the  sacrifice.     The  reason  why 
a  community  can  address  the  god  which  it  worships  )' 
is  that  the  god  is  felt  to  be  identified  in  some  way) 
with  the  community  and  to  have  its  interests  in  his  -} 
charge  and  care.     And  the  rite  of  sacrifice  is  felt^ 
to  make  the  identification  more  real.     Prayer,  again/ 
is  possible  only  to  the  god  to  whom  the  community 
is  known;  with  whom  it  is  identified,  more  or  less; 
and  with  whom,  when  his  help  is  required,  the  com- 


178  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

munity  seeks  to  identify  itself  more  effectually. 
The  means  of  that  identification  without  which  the 
prayers  of  the  community  would  be  ineffectual  is 
I  sacrifice.  The  earliest  form  of  sacrifice  may  prob- 
\ably  be  taken  to  be  the  sacrifice  of  an  animal,  fol- 
ilowed  by  a  sacrificial  meal.  Later,  when  the  god 
has  a  stated  place  in  which  he  is  believed  to  manifest 
himself,  —  tree  or  temple,  —  then  the  identification 
may  be  effected  by  attaching  offerings  to  the  tree 
or  temple.  But  in  either  case  what  is  sought  by  the 
offering  dedicated  or  the  meal  of  sacrifice  is  in  a 
word  "incorporation."  The  worshippers  desire  to 
feel  that  they  are  at  one  with  the  spirit  whom  they 
worship.  And  the  desire  to  experience  this  sense  of 
union  is  particularly  strong  when  plague  or  famine 
makes  it  evident  that  some  estrangement  has  taken 
place  between  the  god  and  the  community  which  is 
normally  in  his  care  and  under  his  protection.  The 
sacrifices  and  prayers  that  are  offered  in  such  a  case 
obviously  do  not  open  up  communication  for  the  first 
,  time  between  the  god  and  his  tribe :  they  revive  and 
}  reenforce  a  communion  which  is  felt  to  exist  already, 
even  though  temporal  misfortunes,  such  as  drought 
or  famine,  testify  that  it  has  been  allowed  by  the 
tribe  to  become  less  close  than  it  ought  to  be,  or  that 


SACRIFICE  179 

it  has  been  strained  by  transgressions  on  the  part  of 
individual  members  of  the  community.  But  it  is 
not  only  in  times  of  public  distress  that  the  com- 
munity approaches  its  god  with  sacrifice  and 
prayer.  It  so  happens  that  the  prayers  offered  for 
victory  in  war  or  for  rain  or  for  deliverance  from 
famine  are  instances  of  prayer  of  so  marked  a  char- 
acter that  they  have  forced  themselves  on  the  notice 
of  travellers  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  from  the 
Eskimo  to  the  Australian  black  fellows  or  the  negroes 
of  Africa.  And  it  was  to  this  class  of  prayers  that 
I  called  your  attention  principally  in  the  last  lec- 
ture. But  they  are,  when  we  come  to  think  of  it, 
essentially  occasional  prayers,  prayers  that  are 
offered  at  the  great  crises  of  tribal  life,  when  the 
very  existence  of  the  tribe  is  at  stake.  Such  crises, 
however,  by  their  very  nature  are  not  regular  or 
normal;  and  it  would  be  an  error  to  suppose  that 
it  is  only  on  these  occasions  that  prayers  are  made 
by  savage  or  barbarous  peoples.  If  we  wish  to  dis- 
cover the  earliest  form  of  regularly  recurring  public 
worship,  we  must  look  for  some  regularly  recurring 
occasion  for  it.  One  such  regularly  recurring  oc- 
casion is  harvest  time,  another  is  seed  time,  another  ( 
is  the  annual  ceremonial  at  which  the  boys  who  at- 


l8o  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

tain  in  the  course  of  the  year  to  the  age  of  manhood 
are  initiated  into  the  secrets  or  " mysteries"  of  the 
tribe.  These  are  the  chief  and  perhaps  the  only 
regularly  recurring  occasions  of  public  worship  as 
distinguished  from  the  irregular  crises  of  war,  pesti- 
lence, drought,  and  famine  which  affect  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole,  and  from  the  irregular  occasions 
when  the  individual  member  of  the  community  prays 
for  offspring  or  for  delivery  from  sickness  or  for  suc- 
cess in  the  private  undertaking  in  which  he  happens 
to  be  engaged. 

Of  the  regularly  recurring  occasions  of  public 
worship  I  will  select,  to  begin  with,  the  rites  which 
are  associated  with  harvest  time.  And  I  will  do  so 
partly  because  the  science  of  religion  provides  us 
with  very  definite  particulars  both  as  to  the  sacrifices 
and  as  to  the  prayers  which  are  usually  made  on 
these  occasions;  and  partly  because  the  prayers 
that  are  made  are  of  a  special  kind  and  throw  a 
fresh  light  on  the  nature  of  the  communion  that 
the  tribe  seeks  to  effect  by  means  of  the  sacrificial 
offering. 

At  Saa,  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  yams  are  offered, 
and  the  person  offering  them  cries  in  a  loud  voice, 
"This  is  yours  to  eat"  (Frazer,  G.  B.2,  II,  465).  In 


SACRIFICE  l8l 

the  Society  Islands  the  formula  is,  "Here,  Tari,  I  have 
brought  you  something  to  eat"  (ib.,  469).  In  Indo- 
China,  the  invitation  is  the  same:  "Taste,  O  god- 
dess, these  first-fruits  which  have  just  been  reaped" 
(ib.,  325).  There  are  no  actually  expressed  words 
of  thanks  in  these  instances;  but  we  may  safely 
conjecture  that  the  offerings  are  thank-offerings  and 
that  the  feeling  with  which  the  offerings  are  made  is 
one  of  gratitude  and  thankfulness.  Thus  in  Ceram 
we  are  told  that  first-fruits  are  offered  "as  a  token  of 
gratitude"  (ib.,  463).  On  the  Niger  the  Onitsha 
formula  is  explicit:  "I  thank  God  for  being  per- 
mitted to  eat  the  new  yam"  (ib.,  325).  At  Tjumba 
in  the  East  Indies,  "vessels  filled  with  rice  are  pre- 
sented as  a  thank-offering  to  the  gods"  (ib.,  462). 
The  people  of  Nias  on  these  occasions  offer  thanks 
for  the  blessings  bestowed  on  them  (ib.,  463).  By  a 
very  natural  transition  of  thought  and  feeling,  thank- 
fulness for  past  favours  leads  to  prayer  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  favour  in  the  future.  Thus  in  Tana,  in 
the  New  Hebrides,  the  formula  is:  "Compassion- 
ate father !  here  is  some  food  for  you ;  eat  it ;  be 
kind  to  us  on  account  of  it"  (ib.,  464);  while  the 
Basutos  say:  "Thank  you,  gods;  give  us  bread 
to-morrow  also"  (ib.,  459) ;  and  in  Tonga  the  prayers 


1 82  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

made  at  the  offering  of  first-fruits  implore  the  pro- 
tection of  the  gods,  and  beseech  them  for  welfare 
generally,  though  in  especial  for  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  (ib.,  466). 

The  prayers  of  primitive  man  which  I  quoted  in 
my  last  lecture  were  in  the  nature  of  petitions  or 
requests,  as  was  natural  and  indeed  inevitable  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  they  were  preferred  on  occasions 
when  the  tribe  was  in  exceptional  distress  and  re- 
quired the  aid  of  the  gods  on  whose  protection  the 
community  relied.  But  the  prayers  which  I  have 
just  quoted  are  not  in  their  essence  petitions  or 
requests,  even  though  in  some  cases  they  tend  to 
become  so.  They  are  essentially  prayers  of  thanks- 
giving and  the  offerings  made  are  thank-offerings. 
Thus  our  conception  of  primitive  prayer  must  be 
extended  to  include  both  mental  attitudes  —  that 
of  thankfulness  for  past  or  present  blessings  as  well 
as  the  hope  of  blessings  yet  to  come.  And  inasmuch 
as  sacrifice  is  the  concomitant  of  prayer,  we  must 
recognise  that  sacrificial  offerings  also  serve  as  the 
expression  of  both  mental  attitudes.  And  we  must 
note  that  in  the  regularly  recurring  form  of  public 
or  tribal  worship  with  which  we  are  now  dealing 
the  dominant  feeling  to  which  expression  is  given  is 


f  UN1V 

SACRIFICE  183 


V          OF 

X£/ 


that  of  thankfulness.  The  tribe  seeks  for  communion 
with  its  god  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  its  thanks. 
Even  the  savage  who  simply  says,  "Here,  Tari,  I 
have  brought  you  something  to  eat,"  or,  still  more 
curtly,  "  This  is  yours  to  eat,"  is  expressing  thanks, 
albeit  in  savage  fashion.  And  the  means  which  the 
savage  adopts  for  securing  that  communion  which 
he  seeks  to  renew  regularly  with  the  tribal  god  is  a 
sacrificial  meal,  of  which  the  god  and  his  worshippers 
partake.  Throughout  the  whole  ceremony,  whether 
we  regard  the  spoken  words  or  the  acts  performed, 
there  is  no  suggestion  of  magic  and  no  possibility  of 
twisting  the  ceremony  into  a  piece  of  magic  intended 
to  produce  some  desired  result  or  to  exercise  any 
constraint  over  the  powers  to  which  the  ceremony  is 
addressed.  The  mental  attitude  is  that  of  thankful- 
ness. 

Now,  it  is,  I  venture  to  suggest,  impossible  to  dis- 
sociate from  the  first-fruits  ceremonials  which  I 
have  described  the  ceremonies  observed  by  Austra- 
lian black  fellows  on  similar  occasions.  And  it  is 
also  impossible  to  overlook  the  differences  between 
the  ceremony  in  Australia  and  the  ceremony  else- 
where. In  Australia,  as  elsewhere,  when  the  time  of 
year  arrives  at  which  the  food  becomes  fit  for  eating, 


184  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

a  ceremony  has  to  be  performed  before  custom  per- 
mits the  food  to  be  eaten  freely.  In  Australia,  as 
elsewhere,  a  ceremonial  eating,  a  sacramental  meal, 
has  to  take  place.  But  whereas  elsewhere  the  god 
of  the  community  is  expressly  invited  to  partake  of 
the  sacramental  meal,  even  though  he  be  not  men- 
tioned by  name  and  though  the  invitation  take  the 
curt  form  of  "This  is  yours  to  eat,"  in  Australia  no 
words  whatever  are  spoken;  the  person  who  per- 
forms the  ceremony  performs  it  indeed  with  every 
indication  of  reverential  feeling,  he  eats  solemnly 
and  sparingly,  that  is  to  say  formally  and  because 
the  eating  is  a  matter  of  ritual,  but  no  reference  is 
made  by  him  so  far  as  we  know,  to  any  god.  How 
then  are  we  to  explain  the  absence  of  any  such 
reference?  There  seems  to  me  to  be  only  one  ex- 
planation which  is  reasonably  possible.  It  is  that 
in  the  Australian  ceremony,  which  would  be  perfectly 
intelligible  and  perfectly  in  line  with  the  ceremony 
as  it  occurs  everywhere  else,  the  reference  to  the  god 
who  is  or  was  invited  to  partake  of  the  first-fruits  has 
in  the  process  of  time  and,  we  must  add,  in  the  course 
of  religious  decay,  gradually  dropped  out.  The 
invitation  may  never  have  been  more  ample  than 
the  curt  form,  "This  is  yours  to  eat."  Even  in  the 


SACRIFICE  185 

absence  of  any  verbal  invitation  whatever,  a  gesture 
may  long  have  sufficed  to  indicate  what  was  in  the 
mind  and  was  implied  by  the  act  of  the  savage  per- 
forming the  ceremony.  Words  may  not  have  been 
felt  necessary  to  explain  what  every  person  present 
at  the  ceremony  knew  to  be  the  purpose  of  the  rite. 
But  in  the  absence  of  any  verbal  formula  whatever 
the  purpose  and  meaning  of  the  rite  would  be  apt  to 
pass  out  of  mind,  to  evaporate,  even  though  custom 
maintained,  as  it  does  in  Australia  to  this  day  main- 
tain, the  punctual  and  punctilious  performance  of 
the  outward  ceremony.  I  suggest,  therefore,  that  in 
Australia,  as  elsewhere,  the  solemn  eating  of  the  first- 
fruits  has  been  a  sacramental  meal  of  which  both  the 
god  and  his  worshippers  were  partakers.  The  alter- 
native is  to  my  mind  much  less  probable :  it  is  to  use 
the  Australian  ceremony  as  it  now  exists  to  explain 
the  origin  of  the  ceremony  as  we  find  it  elsewhere. 
In  Australia  it  is  not  now  apparently  associated  with 
the  worship  of  any  god ;  therefore  it  may  be  argued 
in  other  countries  also  it  was  not  originally  part  of 
the  worship  of  any  god  either.  If,  then,  it  was  not 
an  act  of  public  worship  originally,  how  are  we  to 
understand  it?  The  suggestion  is  that  the  fruits  of 
the  earth  or  the  animals  which  become  the  food  of 


1 86  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

man  are,  until  they  become  fit  for  eating,  regarded 
as  sacred  or  taboo,  and  therefore  may  not  be  eaten. 
That  suggestion  derives  some  support  from  the  fact 
that  in  Australia  anything  that  is  eaten  may  be  a 
totem  and  being  a  totem  is  taboo.  But  if  it  is  thus 
sacred,  then  in  order  to  be  eaten  it  must  be  "desacral- 
ised,"  the  taboo  must  be  taken  off.  And  it  is  sug- 
gested that  that  precisely  is  what  is  effected  by  the 
ceremonial  eating  of  the  totem  by  the  headman  of  the 
totem  clan:  the  totem  is  desacralised  by  the  mere 
fact  that  it  is  formally  and  ceremonially  eaten  by  the 
headman,  after  which  it  may  be  consumed  by  others 
as  an  ordinary  article  of  food.  But  this  explanation 
of  the  first-fruits  ceremony  is  based  upon  an  assump- 
tion which  is  contrary  to  the  facts  of  the  case  as  it 
occurs  in  Australia.  It  assumes  that  the  plant  or 
the  animal  until  desacralised  is  taboo  to  all  members 
of  the  tribe,  and  that  none  of  them  can  eat  it  until  it 
has  been  desacralised  by  the  ceremonial  eating.  But 
the  assumption  is  false ;  the  plant  or  animal  is  sacred 
and  taboo  only  to  members  of  the  clan  whose  totem 
it  is.  It  is  not  sacred  to  the  vast  majority  of  the 
tribe,  for  they  have  totems  of  their  own ;  to  them  it  is 
not  sacred  or  taboo,  they  may  kill  it  —  and  they  do 
—  without  breaking  any  taboo.  The  ceremonial 


SACRIFICE  187 

eating  of  the  first-fruits  raises  no  taboo  as  far  as  the 
tribe  generally  is  concerned,  for  the  plant  or  animal 
is  not  taboo  to  them.  As  far  as  the  tribe  generally  is 
concerned,  no  process  of  desacralisation  takes  place 
and  none  is  effected  by  the  ceremonial  eating.  It  is 
the  particular  totem  group  alone  which  is  affected 
by  the  ceremony;  and  the  inference  which  it  seems 
to  me  preferable  to  draw  is  that  the  ceremonial  eating 
of  the  first-fruits  is,  or  rather  has  been,  in  Australia 
what  it  is  elsewhere,  viz.  an  instance  of  prayer  and 
sacrifice  in  which  the  worshippers  of  a  god  are 
brought  into  periodic  —  in  this  case  annual  —  com- 
munion with  their  god.  The  difference  between 
the  Australian  case  and  others  seems  to  be  that  in 
the  other  cases  the  god  who  partakes  of  the  first- 
fruits  is  the  god  of  the  whole  community,  while  in 
Australia  he  is  the  god  of  the  particular  totem  group 
and  is  analogous  to  the  family  gods  who  are  wor- 
shipped elsewhere,  even  where  there  is  a  tribal  or 
national  god  to  be  worshipped  as  well. 

We  are  then  inclined,  for  these  and  other  reasons, 
to  explain  the  ceremonial  eating  of  the  totem  plant 
or  animal  in  Australia  by  the  analogy  of  the  cere- 
monial eating  of  first-fruits  elsewhere,  and  to  regard 
the  ceremony  as  being  in  all  cases  an  act  of  worship, 


1 88  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

in  which  at  harvest  time  the  worshippers  of  a  god 
seek  communion  with  him  by  means  of  sacrifice 
and  prayers  of  thanksgiving.  But  if  we  take  this 
view  of  the  sacrifice  and  prayers  offered  at  harvest 
time,  we  shall  be  inclined  to  regard  the  rites  which 
are  performed  at  seed  time,  or  the  period  analogous 
to  it,  as  being  also  possibly,  in  part,  of  a  religious 
character.  In  the  case  of  agricultural  peoples  it  is 
beyond  doubt  that  some  of  the  ceremonies  are  reli- 
gious in  character:  where  the  food  plant  is  itself 
regarded  as  a  deity  or  the  mode  in  which  a  deity  is 
manifested,  not  only  may  there  be  at  harvest  time  a 
sacramental  meal  in  which,  as  amongst  the  Aztecs, 
the  deity  is  formally  " communicated"  to  his  wor- 
shippers, but  at  seed  time  sacrifice  and  prayer  may 
be  made  to  the  deity.  Such  a  religious  ceremony, 
whatever  be  the  degree  of  civilisation  or  semicivili- 
sation  which  has  been  reached  by  those  who  observe 
the  ceremony,  does  not  of  course  take  the  place 
of  the  agricultural  operations  which  are  necessary  if 
the  fruits  are  to  be  produced  in  due  season.  And 
the  combination  of  the  religious  rites  and  the  agri- 
cultural operations  does  not  convert  the  agricul- 
tural operations  into  magical  operations,  or  prove 
that  the  religious  rites  are  merely  pieces  of  magic 


SACRIFICE  189 

intended  to  constrain  the  superior  power  of  the  deity 
concerned.  Indeed,  if  among  the  operations  per- 
formed at  seed  time  we  find  some  that  from  the 
point  of  view  of  modern  science  are  perfectly  inef- 
fectual, as  vain  as  eating  tiger  to  make  you  bold,  we 
shall  be  justified  in  regarding  them  as  pieces  of  primi- 
tive science,  eventually  discarded  indeed  in  the 
progress  of  advancing  knowledge,  but  originally 
practised  (on  the  principle  that  like  produces  like) 
as  the  natural  means  of  producing  the  effect  desired. 
If  we  so  regard  them,  we  shall  escape  the  error  of 
considering  them  to  be  magical;  and  we  shall  have 
no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  them  from  the  reli- 
gious rites  which  may  be  combined  with  them. 
Further,  where  harvest  time  is  marked  by  the  offer- 
ing of  sacrifice  and  prayers  of  thanksgiving,  we  may 
not  unreasonably  take  it  that  the  religious  rites  ob- 
served at  seed  time  or  the  period  analogous  to  it  are 
in  the  nature  of  sacrifice  and  prayers  addressed  to 
the  appropriate  deity  to  beseech  him  to  favour  the 
growth  of  the  plant  or  animal  in  question.  In  a 
word,  the  practice  of  giving  thanks  to  a  god  at  harvest 
time  for  the  harvest  creates  a  reasonable  presump- 
tion that  prayer  is  offered  to  him  at  seed  time ;  and 
if  thanks  are  given  at  a  period  analogous  to  har- 


COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

vest  time  by  a  people  like  the  Australian  black 
fellows,  who  have  no  domesticated  plants  or  animals, 
prayers  of  the  nature  of  petitions  may  be  offered  by 
them  at  the  period  analogous  to  seed  time. 

The  deity  to  whom  prayers  are  offered  at  the  one 
period  and  thanksgiving  is  made  at  the  other  may 
be,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Aztec  Xilonen,  or  the  Hindoo 
Maize-mother,  the  spirit  of  the  plant  envisaged  as  a 
deity;  or  may  be,  not  a  "departmental"  deity  of 
this  kind,  but  a  supreme  deity  having  power  over  all 
things.  But  when  we  turn  from  the  regularly  recur- 
ring acts  of  public  worship  connected  with  seed  time 
and  harvest  to  the  regularly  recurring  ceremonies  at 
which  the  boys  of  a  tribe  are  initiated  into  the  duties 
and  rights  of  manhood,  it  is  obvious  that  the  deity 
concerned  in  them,  even  if  we  assume  (as  is  by  no 
means  necessary)  that  he  was  originally  "depart- 
mental" and  at  first  connected  merely  with  the 
growth  of  a  plant  or  animal,  must  be  regarded  at  the 
initiation  ceremonies  as  a  god  having  in  his  care  all 
the  interests  of  that  tribe  of  which  the  boys  to  be 
initiated  are  about  to  become  full  members.  Un- 
mistakable traces  of  such  a  deity  are  found  amongst 
the  Australian  black  fellows  in  the  "father  of  all," 
"the  all-father"  described  by  Mr.  Howitt.  The 


SACRIFICE  IQI 

worship  of  the  "all-father"  is  indeed  now  of  a  frag 
mentary  kind;  but  it  fortunately  happens  that  in 
the  case  of  one  tribe,  the  Euahlayi,  we  have  evidence, 
rescued  by  Mrs.  Langloh  Parker,  to  show  that  prayer 
is  offered  to  Byamee;  the  Euahlayi  pray  to  him  for 
long  life,  because  they  have  kept  his  law.  The 
nature  of  Byamee's  law  may  safely  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  at  this  festival,  both  amongst  the  Euah- 
layi and  other  Australians,  the  boys  who  are 
being  initiated  are  taught  the  moral  laws  or  the 
customary  morality  of  the  tribe.  But  though  pray- 
ers are  still  offered  by  the  Euahlayi  and  may  have 
at  one  time  been  offered  by  all  the  Australian  tribes, 
there  is  no  evidence  at  present  to  show  that  the  prayer 
is  accompanied  by  a  sacrifice,  as  is  customary  amongst 
tribes  whose  worship  has  not  disintegrated  so  much 
as  is  the  case  amongst  the  Australians. 

The  ceremonies  by  which  boys  are  admitted  to 
the  status  of  manhood  are,  probably  amongst  all 
the  peoples  of  the  earth  who  observe  them,  of  a 
religious-  character,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the 
community  to  which  the  boy  is  admitted  when  he 
attains  the  age  of  manhood  is  a  community,  united 
together  by  religious  bonds  as  a  community  wor- 
shipping the  same  god  or  gods ;  and  it  is  to  the  wor- 


IQ2  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

ship  and  the  service  of  these  gods  that  he  is  admitted. 
But  the  ceremonies  themselves  vary  too  much  to 
allow  of  our  drawing  from  them  any  valuable  or 
important  conclusion  as  to  the  nature  and  import 
of  sacrifice  as  a  religious  institution.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  ceremonies  observed  at  harvest  time,  or 
the  analogous  period,  have,  wherever  they  occur, 
such  marked  similarity  among  themselves,  and  the 
institution  of  prayer  and  sacrifice  is  such  a  promi- 
nent feature  in  them,  that  the  evidence  they  afford 
must  be  decisive  for  us  in  attempting  to  form  a 
theory  of  sacrifice.  Nor  can  we  dissociate  the  cere- 
monies observed  in  spring  from  the  harvest  cere- 
monies; as  Dr.  Frazer  remarks  (G.  B.,  II,  190), 
"  Plainly  these  spring  and  harvest  customs  are  based 
on  the  same  ancient  modes  of  thought  and  form 
parts  of  the  same  primitive  heathendom."  What, 
then,  are  these  "ancient  modes  of  thought"  and 
what  the  primitive  customs  based  upon  them? 
We  may,  I  think,  classify  them  in  four  groups. 
If  we  are  to  take  first  those  instances  in  which  the 
"ancient  mode  of  thought"  is  most  clearly  expressed 
—  whether  because  they  are  the  most  fully  developed 
or  because  they  retain  the  ancient  mode  most  faith- 
fully and  with  the  least  disintegration  —  we  must 


SACRIFICE  193 

turn  to  ancient  Mexico  and  Peru.  In  Mexico 
a  paste  idol  or  dough  image  of  the  god  was  made; 
the  priest  hurled  a  dart  into  its  breast ;  and  this  was 
called  the  killing  of  the  god,  "so  that  his  body  might 
be  eaten."  The  dough  image  was  broken  and  the 
pieces  were  given  in  the  manner  of  a  communion  to 
the  people,  "who  received  it  with  such  tears,  fear, 
and  reverence,  as  it  was  an  admirable  thing/'  says 
Father  Acosta,  "saying  that  they  did  eat  the  flesh 
and  bones  of  God."  Or,  again,  an  image  of  the 
goddess  Chicomecoatl  was  made  of  dough  and  exhi- 
bited by  the  priest,  saying,  "This  is  your  god." 
All  kinds  of  maize,  beans,  etc.,  were  offered  to  it  and 
then  were  eaten  in  the  temple  "in  a  general  scram- 
ble, take  who  could."  In  Peru  ears  of  maize  were 
dressed  in  rich  garments  and  worshipped  as  the 
Mother  of  the  Maize ;  or  little  loaves  of  maize  mingled 
with  the  blood  of  sheep  were  made ;  the  priest  gave 
to  each  of  the  people  a  morsel  of  these  loaves,  "  and 
all  did  receive  and  eat  these  pieces,"  and  prayed  that 
the  god  "would  show  them  favour,  granting  them 
children  and  happy  years  and  abundance  and  all 
that  they  required."  In  this,  the  first  group  of 
instances,  it  is  plain  beyond  all  possibility  of  gain- 
saying that  the  spring  and  harvest  customs  consist 
o 


IQ4  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

of  the  worship  of  a  god,  of  sacrifice  and  prayers  to 
him,  and  of  a  communion  which  bound  the  wor- 
shippers to  one  another  and  to  him. 

Our  second  group  of  instances  consists  of  cases 
in  which  the  corn  or  dough  or  paste  is  not  indeed 
made  into  the  form  or  image  of  a  god,  but,  as  Dr. 
Frazer  says  (G.  B.  II,  318),  "the  new  corn  is  itself 
eaten  sacrament  ally,  that  is,  as  the  body  of  the  corn 
spirit."  The  spirit  thus  worshipped  may  not  yet 
have  acquired  a  proper  name;  the  only  designation 
used  may  have  been  such  a  one  as  the  Hindoo 
Bhogaldai,  meaning  simply  Cotton-mother.  In- 
deed, even  amongst  the  Peruvians,  the  goddess  had 
not  yet  acquired  a  proper  name,  but  was  known 
only  as  the  Mother  of  the  Maize.  But  precisely 
because  the  stage  illustrated  in  our  second  group 
of  instances  is  not  so  highly  developed  as  in  Mexico 
or  Peru  it  is  much  more  widely  spread.  It  is  found 
in  the  East  Indian  island  of  Euro,  amongst  the 
Alfoors  of  Minahassa,  in  the  Celebes,  in  the  Neil- 
gherry  Hills  of  South  India,  in  the  Hindoo  Koosh, 
in  Indo- China,  on  the  Niger,  amongst  the  Zulus 
and  the  Pondos,  and  amongst  the  Creek,  Seminole, 
and  Natchez  Indians  (ib.  321-342).  In  this,  the 
second  group  of  instances,  then,  though  the  god 


SACRIFICE  195 

may  have  no  special,  proper,  name,  and  though  no 
image  of  him  is  made  out  of  the  dough  or  paste, 
still  "the  new  corn  is  itself  eaten  sacramentally, 
that  is  as  the  body  of  the  corn  spirit";  by  means  of 
the  sacramental  eating,  of  sacrifice  and  prayer, 
communion  between  the  god  and  his  worshippers 
is  renewed  and  maintained. 

The  third  group  of  instances  consists  of  the 
harvest  customs  of  northern  Europe  —  the  harvest 
supper  and  the  rites  of  the  Corn-mother  or  the  Corn- 
maiden  or  the  Kern  Baby.  It  can  scarcely  be  con- 
tended that  these  rites  and  customs,  so  far  as  they 
survive  at  the  present  day,  retain,  if  they  ever  had, 
any  religious  value;  they  are  performed  as  a  matter 
of  tradition  and  custom  and  not  because  any  one 
knows  why  they  are  performed.  But  that  they 
originally  had  a  meaning  —  even  though  now  it  has 
evaporated  —  cannot  be  doubted.  Nor  can  it  be 
doubted  that  the  meaning,  if  it  is  to  be  recovered, 
must  be  recovered  by  means  of  the  comparative 
method.  And,  if  the  comparative  method  is  to 
be  applied,  the  Corn-mother  of  northern  Europe 
cannot  be  dissociated  from  the  Maize-mother  of 
ancient  Peru.  But  if  we  go  thus  far,  then  we  must, 
with  Dr.  Frazer  (ib.  288),  recognise  "clearly  the 


196  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

sacramental  character  of  the  harvest-supper,"  in 
which,  "as  a  substitute  for  the  real  flesh  of  the  divine 
being,  bread  and  dumplings  are  made  and  eaten 
sacramentally."  Thus,  once  more,  harvest  cus- 
toms testify  in  northern  Europe,  as  elsewhere,  to 
the  fact  that  there  was  once  a  stated,  annual,  period 
at  which  communion  between  the  god  and  his  wor- 
shipper was  sought  by  prayer  and  sacrifice. 

The  North-European  harvest  customs  are  further 
interesting  and  important  because,  if  they  are  clearly 
connected  on  the  one  hand  with  the  groups  of  in- 
stances already  given,  they  are  also  connected  on 
the  other  with  the  group  to  which  we  have  yet  to  call 
attention.  Thus  far  the  wheat  or  maize,  if  not  eaten 
in  the  form  of  little  loaves  or  cakes,  has  been  made 
into  a  dough  image,  or  else  the  ears  of  maize  have 
been  dressed  in  rich  garments  to  indicate  that  they 
represent  the  Mother  of  the  Maize;  and  in  Europe 
also  both  forms  of  symbolism  are  found.  But  in 
northern  Europe,  the  corn  spirit  is  also  believed 
to  be  manifested,  Dr.  Frazer  says,  in  "the  animal 
which  is  present  in  the  corn  and  is  caught  or  killed 
in  the  last  sheaf."  The  animal  may  be  a  wolf,  dog, 
cock,  hare,  cat,  goat,  bull,  cow,  horse,  or  pig.  "The 
animal  is  slain  and  its  flesh  and  blood  are  partaken 


SACRIFICE  IQ7 

of  by  the  harvesters,"  and,  Dr.  Frazer  says,  "these 
customs  bring  out  clearly  the  sacramental  character 
of  the  harvest  supper."  Now,  this  manifestation 
of  the  corn  spirit  in  animal  form  is  not  confined  to 
Europe;  it  occurs  for  instance  in  Guinea  and  in 
all  the  provinces  and  districts  of  China.  And  it  is 
important  as  forming  a  link  between  the  agricul- 
tural and  the  pre-agricultural  periods;  in  Dr. 
Frazer's  words,  "  hunting  and  pastoral  tribes,  as 
well  as  agricultural  peoples,  have  been  in  the  habit 
of  killing  their  gods"  (ib.  366).  In  the  pastoral 
period,  as  well  as  in  agricultural  times,  the  god  who 
is  worshipped  by  the  tribe  and  with  whom  the  tribe 
seeks  communion  by  means  of  prayer  and  sacrifice, 
may  manifest  himself  in  animal  form,  and  "the 
animal  is  slain  and  its  flesh  and  blood  are  partaken 
of." 

We  now  come  to  the  fourth  and  the  last  of  our 
groups  of  instances.  It  consists  of  the  rites  observed 
by  Australian  tribes.  Amongst  these  tribes  too 
there  is  what  Dr.  Frazer  terms  "a  sacramental 
eating"  of  the  totem  plant  or  animal.  Thus  Central 
Australian  black  men  of  the  kangaroo  totem  eat 
a  little  kangaroo  flesh,  as  a  sacrament  (Spencer  and 
Gillen,  p.  204  ff.).  Now,  it  is  impossible,  I  think,  to 


198  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

dissociate  the  Australian  rite,  to  separate  this  fourth 
group,  from  the  three  groups  already  described. 
In  Australia,  as  in  the  other  cases,  the  customs  are 
observed  in  spring  and  harvest  time,  and  in  harvest 
time,  in  Australia  as  well  as  elsewhere,  there  is  a 
solemn  and  sparing  eating  of  the  plant  or  animal ; 
and,  in  Dr.  Frazer's  words,  "  plainly  these  spring 
and  harvest  customs  are  based  on  the  same  ancient 
modes  of  thought,  and  form  part  of  the  same  primi- 
tive heathendom."  What,  then,  is  this  ancient  and 
primitive  mode  of  thought  ?  In  all  the  cases  except 
the  Australian,  the  thought  manifestly  implied  and 
expressed  is  that  by  the  solemn  eating  of  the  plant 
or  the  animal,  or  the  dough  image  or  paste  idol,  or 
the  little  loaves,  the  community  enters  into  com- 
munion with  its  god,  or  renews  communion  with  him. 
On  this  occasion  the  Peruvians  prayed  for  children, 
happy  years  and  abundance.  On  this  occasion,  even 
among  the  Australians,  the  Euahlayi  tribe  pray  for 
long  life,  because  they  have  kept  Byamee's  law. 
It  would  not,  therefore,  be  unreasonable  to  interpret 
the  Australian  custom  by  the  same  ancient  mode  of 
thought  which  explains  the  custom  wherever  else 
—  and  that  is  all  over  the  world  —  it  is  found.  But 
perhaps,  if  we  can  find  some  other  interpretation 


SACRIFICE  199 

of  the  Australian  custom,  we  should  do  better  to 
reverse  the  process  and  explain  the  spring  and  har- 
vest customs  which  are  found  elsewhere  by  means  of, 
and  in  accordance  with,  the  Australian  custom. 
Now  another  interpretation  of  the  Australian  custom 
has  been  put  forward  by  Dr.  Frazer.  He  treats  the 
Australian  ceremony  as  being  a  piece  of  pure  magic, 
the  purpose  of  which  is  to  promote  the  growth  and 
increase  of  the  plants  and  animals  which  provide 
the  black  fellows  with  food.  But  if  we  start  from 
this  point  of  view,  we  must  go  further  and  say  that 
amongst  other  peoples  than  the  Australian  the  kill- 
ing of  the  representative  animal  of  the  spirit  of 
vegetation  is,  in  Dr.  Frazer's  words,  "a  magical  rite 
intended  to  assure  the  revival  of  nature  in  spring." 
And  if  that  is  the  nature  of  the  rite  which  appears 
in  northern  Europe  as  the  harvest  supper,  it  will 
also  be  the  nature  of  the  rite  as  it  appears  both  in 
our  second  group  of  instances,  where  the  corn  is 
eaten  "as  the  body  of  the  corn -spirit,"  and  in  the 
first  group,  where  the  dough  image  or  paste  idol  was 
eaten  in  Mexico  as  the  flesh  and  bones  of  the  god. 
That  this  line  of  thought  runs  through  Dr.  Frazer's 
Golden  Bough,  in  its  second  edition,  is  indicated  by 
the  fact  that  the  rite  is  spoken  of  throughout  as  a 


20O  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

sacrament.  That  the  Mexican  rite  as  described 
in  our  first  group  is  sacramental,  is  clear.  Of  the 
rites  which  form  our  second  group  of  instances,  Dr. 
Frazer  says  that  the  corn-spirit,  or  god,  "is  killed 
in  the  person  of  his  representative  and  eaten  sacra- 
mentally,"  and  that  "the  new  corn  is  itself  eaten 
sacra  mentally ;  that  is,  as  the  body  of  the  corn-spirit" 
(p.  318).  Of  the  North  European  rites,  again,  he 
says,  "the  animal  is  slain  and  its  flesh  and  blood  are 
partaken  of  by  the  harvesters"  —  "these  customs 
bring  out  clearly  the  sacramental  character  of  the 
harvest  supper"  —  "as  a  substitute  for  the  real 
flesh  of  the  divine  being,  bread  or  dumplings  are 
made  in  his  image  and  eaten  sacramentally." 
Finally,  even  when  speaking  of  the  Australians  as 
men  who  have  no  gods  to  worship,  and  with  whom 
the  rite  is  pure  and  unadulterated  magic,  he  yet 
describes  the  rite  as  a  sacrament. 

Now  if,  on  the  one  hand,  from  its  beginning  amongst 
the  Australians  to  the  form  which  it  finally  took 
amongst  the  Mexicans  the  rite  is,  as  Dr.  Frazer 
systematically  calls  it,  a  sacrament ;  and  if,  on  the 
other,  it  is,  in  Dr.  Frazer's  words,  "a  magical  rite 
intended  to  assure  the  revival  of  nature  in  spring," 
then  the  conclusion  which  the  reader  cannot  help 


SACRIFICE  201 

drawing  is  that  a  sacrament,  or  this  sacrament  at 
least,  is  in  its  origin,  and  in  its  nature  throughout, 
a  piece  of  magic.  Religion  is  but  magic  written 
in  different  characters ;  and  for  those  who  can  inter- 
pret them  it  spells  the  same  thing.  But  though  this 
is  the  conclusion  to  which  Dr.  Frazer's  argument 
leads,  and  to  which  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Golden 
Bough  it  clearly  seemed  to  point;  in  the  preface  to 
the  second  edition  he  formally  disavows  it.  He 
recognises  that  religion  does  not  spring  from  magic, 
but  is  fundamentally  opposed  to  it.  A  sacrament, 
therefore,  we  may  infer,  cannot  be  a  piece  of  magic. 
The  Australian  sacrament,  therefore,  as  Dr.  Frazer 
calls  it,  cannot,  we  should  be  inclined  to  say,  be  a 
piece  of  magic.  But  Dr.  Frazer  still  holds  that  the 
Australian  rite  or  sacrament  is  pure  magic  —  reli- 
gious it  cannot  be,  for  in  Dr.  Frazer's  view  the  Aus- 
tralians know  no  religion  and  have  no  gods. 

Now  if  the  rite  as  it  occurs  in  Australia  is  pure 
magic,  and  if  religion  is  not  a  variety  of  magic  but 
fundamentally  different  from  it,  then  the  rite  which, 
as  it  occurs  everywhere  else,  is  religious,  cannot  be 
derived  from,  or  a  variety  of,  the  Australian  piece  of 
magic;  and  the  spring  and  harvest  customs  which 
are  found  in  Australia  cannot  be  "based  on  the 


202  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

same  ancient  modes  of  thought  or  form  part  of  the 
same  primitive  heathendom"  as  the  sacramental 
rites  which  are  found  everywhere  else  in  the  world. 
The  solemn  annual  eating  of  the  totem  plant  or 
animal  in  Australia  must  have  a  totally  different 
basis  from  that  on  which  the  sacrament  and  com- 
munion stands  in  every  other  part  of  the  globe: 
in  Australia  it  is  based  on  magic,  elsewhere  on  that 
which  is,  according  to  Dr.  Frazer,  fundamentally 
different  and  opposed  to  magic,  viz.  religion.  Before, 
however,  we  commit  ourselves  to  this  conclusion, 
we  may  be  allowed  to  ask,  What  is  it  that  compels 
us  thus  to  sever  the  Australian  from  the  other  forms 
of  the  rite?  The  reply  would  seem  to  be  that, 
whereas  the  other  forms  are  admittedly  religious, 
the  Australian  is  "a  magical  rite  intended  to  assure 
the  revival  of  nature  in  spring."  Now,  if  that  were 
really  the  nature  of  the  Australian  rite,  we  might 
have  to  accept  the  conclusion  to  which  we  hesitate 
to  commit  ourselves.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
Australian  rite  is  not  intended  to  assure  the  revival 
of  nature  in  spring,  and  has  nothing  magical  about 
it.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  in  spring  in  Australia 
certain  proceedings  are  performed  which  are  based 
upon  the  principle  that  like  produces  like;  and 


SACRIFICE  203 

that  these  proceedings  are,  by  students  of  the  science 
of  religion,  termed  —  perhaps  incorrectly  —  mag- 
ical. But  these  spring  customs  are  quite  different 
from  the  harvest  customs;  and  it  is  the  harvest 
customs  which  constitute  the  link  between  the  rite 
in  Australia  and  the  rite  in  the  rest  of  the  world. 
The  crucial  question,  therefore,  is  whether  the  Aus- 
tralian harvest  rite  is  magical,  or  is  even  based  on 
the  principle  that  like  produces  like.  And  the 
answer  is  that  it  is  plainly  not.  The  harvest  rite 
in  Australia  consists,  as  we  know  it  now,  simply  in 
the  fact  that  at  the  appointed  time  a  little  of  the 
totem  plant  or  animal  is  solemnly  and  sparingly 
eaten  by  the  headman  of  the  totem.  The  solemnity 
with  which  the  rite  is  performed  is  unmistakable, 
and  may  well  be  termed  religious.  And  no  attempt 
even,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  been  made  to  show 
that  this  solemn  eating  is  regarded  as  magic  by  the 
performers  of  the  rite,  or  how  it  can  be  so  regarded 
by  students  of  the  science  of  religion.  Until  the 
attempt  is  made  and  made  successfully,  we  are  more 
than  justified  in  refusing  to  regard  the  rite  as  magical ; 
we  are  bound  to  refuse  to  regard  it  as  such.  But  if 
the  rite  is  not  magical  —  and  a  fortiori  if  it  is,  as 
Dr.  Frazer  terms  it,  sacramental  —  then  it  is  reli- 


204  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

gious;  and  the  ancient  mode  of  thought,  forming 
part  of  primitive  heathendom,  which  is  at  the  base 
of  the  rite,  is  the  conviction  that  manifests  itself 
wherever  the  rite  continues  to  live,  viz.  that  by  prayer 
and  sacrifice  the  worshippers  in  any  community  are 
brought  into  communion  with  the  god  they  worship. 
The  rite  is,  in  truth,  what  Dr.  Frazer  terms  it  as  it 
occurs  in  Australia  —  a  sacrament.  But  not  even 
in  Australia  is  a  sacrament  a  piece  of  magic. 

In  the  animistic  stage  of  the  evolution  of  humanity, 
the  only  causes  man  can  conceive  of  are  animated 
things;  and,  in  the  presence  of  any  occurrence 
sufficiently  striking  to  arrest  his  attention,  the  ques- 
tions which  present  themselves  to  his  mind  are,  Who 
did  this  thing,  and  why?  Occurrences  which  arrest 
the  attention  of  the  community  are  occurrences 
which  affect  the  community;  and  in  a  low  stage  of 
evolution,  when  the  most  pressing  of  all  practical 
questions  is  how  to  live,  the  occurrences  which 
most  effectually  arrest  attention  are  those  which 
affect  the  food  supply  of  the  community.  If,  then, 
the  food  supply  fails,  the  occurrence  is  due  to  some 
of  the  personal,  or  quasi-personal,  powers  by  whom 
the  community  is  surrounded;  and  the  reason  why 
such  power  so  acted  is  found  in  the  wrath  which 


SACRIFICE  205 

must  have  actuated  him.  The  situation  is  abnormal, 
for  famine  is  abnormal;  and  it  indicates  anger  and 
wrath  on  the  part  of  the  power  who  brought  it 
about.  But  it  also  implies  that  when  things  go  on 
in  the  normal  way,  —  when  the  relations  between 
the  spirit  and  the  community  are  normal,  —  the 
attitude  of  the  spirit  to  the^community  is  peaceable 
and  friendly.  Not  only,  however,  does  the  com- 
munity desire  to  renew  peaceable  and  friendly  rela- 
tions, where  pestilence  or  famine  show  that  they 
have  been  disturbed:  the  community  also  desires 
to  benefit  by  them  when  they  are  in  their  normal 
condition.  The  spirits  that  can  disturb  the  normal 
conditions  by  sending  pestilence  or  famine  can  also 
assist  the  community  in  undertakings,  the  success 
of  which  is  indispensable  if  the  community  is  to 
maintain  its  existence;  for  instance,  those  under- 
takings on  which  the  food  supply  of  the  community 
depends.  Hence  the  petitions  which  are  put  up 
at  seed  time,  or,  in  the  pre-agricultural  period,  at 
seasons  analogous  to  seed  time.  Hence,  also,  the 
rites  at  harvest  time  or  the  analogous  season,  rites 
which  are  instituted  and  developed  for  the  purpose 
of  maintaining  friendly  relation  and  communion 
between  the  community,  and  the  spirit  whose  favour 


206  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

is  sought  and  whose  anger  is  dreaded  by  the  com- 
munity. Such  sacrificial  rites  may  indeed  be  inter- 
preted as  the  making  of  gifts  to  the  gods;  and  they 
do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  often  come  so  to  be  regarded 
by  those  who  perform  them.  From  this  undeniable 
fact  the  inference  may  then  be  drawn,  and  by  many 
students  of  the  science  of  religion  it  is  inferred, 
that  from  the  beginning  there  was  in  such  sacrificial 
rites  no  other  intention  than  to  bribe  the  god  or  to 
purchase  his  favour  and  the  good  things  he  had  to 
give.  But  the  inference,  which,  when  properly 
limited,  has  some  truth  in  it,  becomes  misleading 
when  put  forward  as  being  the  whole  truth.  Unless 
there  were  some  truth  in  it,  the  rite  of  sacrifice  could 
never  have  developed  into  the  form  which  was 
denounced  by  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  mercilessly 
exposed  by  Plato.  But  had  that  been  the  whole 
truth,  the  rite  would  have  been  incapable  of  discharg- 
ing the  really  religious  function  which  it  has  in  its 
history  fulfilled.  That  function  has  been  to  place 
and  maintain  the  society  which  practises  it  in  com- 
munion with  its  god.  Doubtless  in  the  earliest 
stages  of  the  history  of  the  rite,  the  communion  thus 
felt  to  be  established  was  prized  and  was  mainly 
sought  for  the  external  blessings  which  were  believed 


SACRIFICE  207 

to  follow  from  it,  or,  as  a  means  to  avert  the  public 
disasters  which  a  breach  of  communion  entailed. 
Doubtless  it  was  only  by  degrees,  and  by  slow 
degrees,  that  the  communion  thus  established  came 
to  be  regarded  as  being  in  itself  the  end  which  the 
rite  of  sacrifice  was  truly  intended  to  attain.  But 
the  communion  of  the  worshippers  with  their  god 
was  not  a  purpose  originally  foreign  to  the  rite,  and 
which,  when  introduced,  transformed  the  rite  from 
what  it  at  first  was  into  something  radically  different. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  present,  even  though  not 
prominent  or  predominant,  from  the  beginning; 
and  the  rite,  as  a  religious  institution,  followed 
different  lines  of  evolution,  according  as  the  one 
aspect  or  the  other  was  developed.  Where  the  as- 
pect under  which  the  sacrificial  rite  was  regarded 
was  that  the  offering  was  a  gift  made  to  the  deity  / 
in  order  to  secure  some  specified  temporal  advantage, 
the  religious  value  of  the  rite  diminished  to  the 
vanishing  point  in  the  eyes  both  of  those  who,  like 
Plato,  could  see  the  intrinsic  absurdity  of  pretending 
to  make  gifts  to  Him  from  whom  alone  all  good 
things  come,  and  of  those  who  felt  that  the  sacrificial 
rite  so  conceived  did  not  afford  the  spiritual  com- 
munion for  which  they  yearned.  Where  even  the  : 


208  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

sacrificial  rite  was  regarded  as  a  means  whereby 
communion  between  the  worshipper  and  his  god  was 
attained  or  maintained,  the  emphasis  might  be 
thrown  on  the  rite  and  its  due  performance  rather 
than  on  the  spiritual  communion  of  which  it  was 
the  condition.  That  is  to  say,  with  the  growth  of 
formalism  attention  was  concentrated  on  the  ritual 
and  correspondingly  withdrawn  from  the  prayer 
which,  from  the  beginning,  had  been  of  the  essence 
of  the  rite.  By  the  rite  of  sacrifice  the  community 
had  always  been  brought  into  the  presence  of  the 
god  it  worshipped;  and,  in  the  prayers  then  offered 
on  behalf  of  the  society,  the  society  had  been  brought 
into  communion  with  its  god.  From  that  com- 
munion it  was  possible  to  fall  away,  even  though 
the  performance  of  the  rite  was  maintained.  The 
very  object  of  that  communion  might  be  misin- 
terpreted and  mistaken  to  be  a  means  merely  to 
temporal  blessings  for  the  community,  or  even  to 
personal  advantages  for  the  individual.  Or  the 
punctilious  performance  of  each  and  every  detail 
of  the  rite  might  tend  to  become  an  end  in  itself 
and  displace  the  spiritual  communion,  the  attain- 
ment of  which  had  been  from  the  beginning  the 
highest,  even  if  not  the  only  or  the  most  prominent, 


SACRIFICE  209 

end  which  the  rite  might  subserve.  The  difference 
between  the  possibilities  which  the  rite  might  have 
realised  and  the  actual  purposes  for  which  it  had 
come  to  be  used  before  the  birth  of  Christ  is  a  dif- 
ference patent  to  the  most  casual  observer  of  the 
facts.  The  dissatisfaction  felt  alike  by  Plato  and 
the  Hebrew  prophets  with  the  rite  as  it  had  come 
to  be  practised  may  be  regarded,  if  we  choose  so 
to  regard  it,  as  the  necessary  consequence  of  pre- 
existing facts,  and  as  necessarily  entailing  the  re- 
jection or  the  reconstitution  of  the  rite.  As  a 
matter  of  history,  the  rite  was  reconstituted  and  not 
rejected;  and  as  reconstituted  it  became  the  central 
fact  of  the  Christian  religion.  It  became  the  means 
whereby,  through  Christ,  all  men  might  be  brought 
to  God.  We  may  say,  if  we  will,  that  a  new  meaning 
was  put  into  the  rite,  or  that  its  true  meaning  was 
now  made  manifest.  The  facts  themselves  clearly 
indicate  that  from  the  beginning  the  rite  was  the  [ 
means  whereby  a  society  sought  or  might  seek  com- 
munion with  its  god.  They  also  indicate  that  the  .*, 
rite  of  animal  sacrifice  came  to  be  found  insufficient 
as  a  means.  It  was  through  our  Lord  that  mankind^ 
learned  what  sacrifice  was  needed  —  learned  to  ] 
"offer  and  present  unto  thee,  O  Lord,  ourselves,  our  ' 


210  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

souls  and  bodies,  to  be  a  reasonable,  holy  and  lively 
sacrifice  unto  thee."  That  is  the  sacrifice  Christ 
showed  us  the  example  of;  that  is  the  example 
which  the  missionary  devotes  himself  to  follow  and 
to  teach. 


MORALITY 

IN  this  lecture  I  propose  to  consider  the  question 
whether  morality  is  based  on  religion  or  religion 
on  morality.  It  is  a  question  which  may  be  ap- 
proached from  the  point  of  view  either  of  philosophy 
or  of  history.  Quite  recently  it  has  been  treated 
from  the  former  point  of  view  by  Professor  Hoffding 
in  The  Philosophy  of  Religion  (translated  into  Eng- 
lish, 1906);  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  his- 
tory of  morality  by  Mr.  Hobhouse  in  his  Morals 
in  Evolution  (1906).  It  may,  of  course,  also  be  quite 
properly  approached  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
history  of  religion;  and  from  whatever  standpoint 
it  is  treated,  the  question  is  one  of  importance  for  the 
missionary,  both  because  of  its  intrinsic  interest  for 
the  philosophy  of  religion,  and  because  its  discussion 
is  apt  to  proceed  on  a  mistaken  view  of  facts  in  the 
history  of  religion.  About  those  facts  and  their  mean- 
ing, the  missionary,  who  is  to  be  properly  equipped  for 
his  work,  should  be  in  no  doubt :  a  right  view  and 
a  proper  estimate  of  the  facts  are  essential  both  for 

211 


212  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

his  practical  work  and  for  the  theoretical  justifica- 
tion of  his  position. 

One  answer  to  the  question  before  us  is  that 
morality  is  the  basal  fact  —  the  bottom  fact :  if  we 
regard  the  question  historically,  we  shall  find  that 
morality  came  first  and  religion  afterwards;  and, 
even  if  that  were  not  so,  we  should  find  that  as  a 
matter  of  logic  and  philosophy  religion  presupposes 
morality  —  religion  may,  for  a  time,  be  the  lever 
that  moves  the  world,  but  it  would  be  powerless  if 
it  had  not  a  fulcrum,  and  that  fulcrum  is  morality. 
So  long  and  so  far  as  religion  operates  beneficially 
on  the  world,  it  does  so  simply  because  it  supports 
and  reenforces  morality.  But  the  time  is  not  far 
distant,  and  may  even  now  be  come,  when  morality 
no  longer  requires  any  support  from  religion  —  and 
then  religion  becomes  useless,  nay!  an  encum- 
brance which  must  either  fall  off  or  be  lopped  off. 
If,  therefore,  morality  can  stand  by  itself,  and  all 
along  has  not  merely  stood  by  itself,  but  has  really 
upheld  religion,  in  what  is  morality  rooted?  The 
answer  is  that  morality  has  its  roots,  not  in  the  com- 
mand that  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart  and  all  thy  soul,  but  in  human  solidar- 
ity, in  humanity  regarded  as  a  spiritual  whole.  To 


MORALITY  213 

this  conclusion,  it  is  said,  the  history  of  recent  phi- 
losophy has  steadily  been  moving.  If  the  move- 
ment had  taken  place  in  only  one  school  of  philo- 
sophic thought,  it  might  have  been  a  movement 
running  into  a  side-track.  But  it  is  the  direction 
taken  by  schools  so  different  in  their  presuppositions 
and  their  methods  as  that  of  Hegel  and  that  of  Comte ; 
and  it  is  the  undesigned  coincidence  of  their  ten- 
dency, which  at  first  could  never  have  been  surmised, 
that  carries  with  it  a  conviction  of  its  correctness. 
Human  solidarity,  humanity  regarded  as  a  spiritual 
whole,  may  be  called,  as  Hegel  calls  it,  self-conscious 
spirit;  or  you  may  call  it,  as  Comte  calls  it,  the 
Mind  of  Humanity  —  it  is  but  the  collective  wisdom 
"of  a  common  humanity  with  a  common  aim" ;  and, 
that  being  so,  morality  is  rooted,  not  in  the  will  and 
the  love  of  a  beneficent  and  omnipotent  Providence, 
but  in  the  self-realising  spirit  in  man  setting  up  its 
"common  aim"  at  morality.  The  very  conception 
of  a  beneficent  and  omnipotent  God  —  having  now 
done  its  work  as  an  aid  to  morality  —  must  now  be 
put  aside,  because  it  stands  in  the  way  of  our  recog- 
nising what  is  the  real  spiritual  whole,  besides  which 
there  is  none  other  spirit,  viz.  the  self-realising  spirit 
in  man.  That  spirit  is  only  realising;  it  is  not  yet 


214  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

realised.  It  is  in  process  of  realisation ;  and  the  con- 
ception of  it,  as  in  process  of  realisation,  enables  it  to 
be  brought  into  harmony,  or  rather  reveals  its  inner 
harmony,  with  the  notion  of  evolution.  There  is 
nothing  outside  evolution,  no  being  to  whom  evo- 
lution is  presented  as  a  spectacle  or  by  whom,  as  a 
process,  it  is  directed.  "Being  itself,"  as  Hoffding 
says  (Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  136),  "is  to  be  con- 
ceived as  in  process  of  becoming,  of  evolution." 
The  spirit  in  man,  as  we  have  just  said,  is  the  real 
spiritual  whole,  and  it  is  self -realising ;  it  is  evolving 
and  progressing  both  morally  and  rationally.  In 
Hoffding's  words  "Being  itself  becomes  more  ra- 
tional than  before"  (ib.,  p.  137).  "Being  itself  is 
not  ready-made  but  still  incomplete,  and  rather  to 
be  conceived  as  a  continual  becoming,  like  the  indi- 
vidual personality  and  like  knowledge"  (ib.,  p.  120). 
We  may  say,  then,  that  being  is  becoming  rationalised 
and  moralised  as  and  because  the  spirit  in  man 
realises  itself.  For  a  time  the  process  of  moralisa- 
tion  and  self-realisation  was  worked  by  and  through 
the  conception  of  a  beneficent  and  omnipotent  god. 
That  conception  was,  it  would  seem,  a  hypothesis, 
valuable  as  long  it  was  a  working  hypothesis,  but 
to  be  cast  aside  now  that  humanitarianism  is  found 


MORALITY  215 

more  adequate  to  the  facts  and  more  in  harmony 
with  the  consistent  application  of  the  theory  of  evo- 
lution. We  have,  then,  to  consider  whether  it  is 
adequate  to  the  facts,  whether,  when  we  regard  the 
facts  of  the  history  of  religion,  we  do  find  that  morality 
comes  first  and  religion  later. 

"What,"  Mr.  Hobhouse  enquires  in  his  Morals 
in  Evolution  (II,  74),  "What  is  the  ethical  character 
of  early  religion?"  and  his  reply  is  that  "in  the  first 
stage  we  find  that  spirits,  as  such,  are  not  concerned 
with  morality."  That  was  also  the  answer  which 
had  previously  been  given  by  Professor  Hoffding, 
who  says  in  his  Philosophy  of  Religion:  "in  the 
lowest  forms  of  it  ...  religion  cannot  be  said  to 
have  any  ethical  significance"  (p.  323).  Originally, 
the  gods  were  "purely  natural  forces  which  could  be 
defied  or  evaded,"  though  eventually  they  "became 
ethical  powers  whom  men  neither  could  nor  wished 
to  defy"  (p.  324).  This  first  stage  of  early  religion 
seems  on  the  terms  of  the  hypothesis  to  be  supposed 
to  be  found  in  the  period  of  animism  and  f etichism  ; 
and  "the  primitive  conception  of  spirit"  is,  Mr. 
Hobhouse  says  (II,  16),  of  something  "feeling  and 
thinking  like  a  rather  stupid  man,  and  open  like  him 
to  supplication,  exhortation,  or  intimidation."  If 


2l6  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

that  is  so,  then  Professor  Hoffding  may  be  justified 
in  saying  that  in  the  lowest  forms  of  religion  "the 
gods  appear  as  powers  on  which  man  is  dependent, 
but  not  as  patterns  of  conduct  or  administrators  of 
an  ethical  world  order"  (p.  324).  Now,  in  the  period 
termed  animistic  because  inanimate  things  are 
supposed  to  be  animated  and  actuated  by  spirits, 
it  may  be  that  many  or  most  of  such  spirits  are  sup- 
posed to  feel  and  think  like  a  rather  stupid  man,  and 
therefore  to  be  capable  of  being  cajoled,  deluded,  in- 
timidated, and  castigated  by  the  human  being  who 
desires  to  make  use  of  them.  But  it  is  not  all 
such  spirits  that  are  worshipped  then.  Indeed, 
it  is  impossible,  Mr.  Hobhouse  says  (II,  15), 
that  any  such  spirit  could  be  "an  object  of  wor- 
ship in  our  sense  of  the  term."  Worship  implies 
the  superiority  of  the  .object  worshipped  to  the 
person  worshipping.  But,  though  not  an  object 
of  worship  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  the  spirit  that 
could  be  deluded,  intimidated,  and  castigated  was, 
according  to  Mr.  Hobhouse,  "the  object  of  a  religious 
cult"  on  the  part  of  the  man  who  believed  that  he 
could  and  did  intimidate  and  castigate  the  spirit. 
Probably,  however,  most  students  of  the  science  of 
religion  would  agree  that  a  cult  which  included  or 


MORALITY  217 

allowed  intimidation  and  castigation  of  the  object 
of  the  cult  was  as  little  entitled  to  be  termed  religious 
as  it  is  to  be  called  worship.  In  the  period  of  ani- 
mism, then,  either  there  was  no  religious  cult,  no 
worship  in  our  sense  of  the  term;  or,  if  there  was 
religion,  then  the  spirit  worshipped  was  worshipped 
as  a  being  higher  than  man.  Whether  man  has 
at  any  time  been  without  religion  is  a  question  on 
which  there  is  here  no  need  to  enter.  The  allega- 
tion we  are  now  considering  is  that  whenever  reli- 
gion does  appear,  then  in  its  first  and  earliest  stage 
it  is  not  concerned  with  morality;  and  the  ground 
for  that  allegation  is  that  the  spirits  of  the  animistic 
period  have  nothing  to  do  with  morality  or  conduct. 
Now,  it  may  be  that  these  spirits  which  animate 
inanimate  things  are  not  concerned  with  morality; 
but  then  neither  are  they  worshipped,  nor  is  the 
relation  between  them  and  man  religious.  Religion 
implies  a  god;  and  a  spirit  to  be  a  god  must  have 
worshippers,  a  community  of  worshippers  —  whether 
that  community  be  a  nation,  a  tribe,  or  a  family. 
Further,  it  is  as  the  protector  of  the  interests  of  that 
community  —  however  small  —  that  the  god  is  wor- 
shipped by  the  community.  The  indispensable 
condition  of  religion  is  the  existence  of  a  community ; 


2l8  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

and  from  the  beginning  man  must  have  lived  in  some 
sort  of  community,  —  whether  a  family  or  a  horde,  — 
for  the  period  of  helpless  infancy  is  so  long  in  the  case 
of  human  beings  that  without  some  sort  of  perman- 
ent community  the  race  could  not  be  perpetuated. 
The  indispensable  condition  of  religion,  therefore, 
has  always  existed  from  the  time  when  man  was 
man.  Further,  whatever  the  form  of  community 
in  which  man  originally  dwelt,  it  was  only  in  the 
community  and  by  means  of  the  community  that 
the  individual  could  exist  —  that  is  to  say,  if  the 
interest  of  any  one  individual  conflicted  or  was  sup- 
posed to  conflict  with  the  interests  of  the  commu- 
nity, then  the  interests  of  the  community  must  pre- 
vail, if  the  community  was  to  exist.  Here,  then, 
from  the  beginning  we  have  the  second  condition 
indispensable  for  the  existence  of  religion,  viz.  the 
possibility  that  the  conduct  of  some  member  of  the 
community  might  not  be  the  conduct  required  by 
the  interests  or  supposed  interests  of  the  community, 
and  prescribed  by  the  custom  of  the  community. 
In  the  case  of  such  divergence  of  interests  and  con- 
duct, the  being  worshipped  by  the  community  was 
necessarily,  as  being  the  god  of  the  community,  and 
receiving  the  worship  of  the  community,  on  the  side 


MORALITY  2ig 

of  the  community  and  against  the  member  who 
violated  the  custom  of  the  community.  But,  at  this 
period  in  the  history  of  humanity,  the  morality  of 
the  community  was  the  custom  of  the  community; 
and  the  god  of  the  community  from  the  first  neces- 
sarily upheld  the  custom,  that  is,  the  morality  of  the 
community.  Spirits  "as  such,"  that  is  to  say,  spirits 
which  animated  inanimate  things  but  which  were  not 
the  protectors  of  any  human  community,  were,  for 
the  very  reason  that  they  were  not  the  gods  of  any 
community,  "not  concerned  with  morality."  Spirits, 
however,  which  were  the  protectors  of  a  community 
necessarily  upheld  the  customs  and  therefore  the 
morality  of  the  community;  they  were  not  "without 
ethical  significance."  It  was  an  essential  part  of 
the  very  conception  of  such  spirits  —  of  spirits  stand- 
ing in  this  relation  to  the  community  —  that  they 
were  "ethical  powers."  Hoffding's  dictum  that 
"the  gods  appear  as  powers  on  which  man  is  de- 
pendent, but  not  as  patterns  of  conduct  or  adminis- 
trators of  an  ethical  world  order"  (p.  323),  overlooks 
the  fact  that  in  the  earliest  times  not  only  are  gods 
powers  on  which  man  is  dependent,  but  powers 
which  enforce  the  conduct  required  by  the  custom 
of  the  community  and  sanction  the  ethical  order  as 


22O  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

far  as  it  has  then  been  revealed.  The  fact  that 
"the  worship  of  the  family,  of  the  clan,  or  of  the 
nation  is  shared  in  by  all,"  not  merely  "helps  to 
nourish  a  feeling  of  solidarity  which  may  acquire 
ethical  significance,"  as  Hoffding  says  (p.  325),  it 
creates  a  solidarity  which  otherwise  would  not  exist. 
If  there  were  no  worship  shared  in  by  all,  there 
would  be  no  religious  solidarity;  and,  judging  from 
the  very  general,  if  not  universal,  occurrence  of  reli- 
gion in  the  lowest  races  as  well  as  the  highest,  we 
may  conjecture  that  without  religious  solidarity 
a  tribe  found  it  hard  or  impossible  to  survive  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  That  religious  solidarity 
however  is  not,  as  Hoffding  suggests,  something 
which  may  eventually  "acquire  ethical  significance"; 
it  is  in  its  essence  and  from  the  beginning  the  wor- 
ship of  a  god  who  punishes  the  community  for  the 
ethical  transgression  of  its  members,  because  they 
are  not  merely  violations  of  the  custom  of  the 
community,  but  offences  against  him.  When  Hoff- 
ding says  (p.  328)  "religious  faith  .  .  .  assumes 
an  independent  human  ethic,  which  has,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  developed  historically  under  the  practical 
influence  of  the  ethical  feeling  of  man,"  he  seems  to 
overlook  the  fact  that  as  a  matter  of  history  human 


MORALITY  221 

ethics  have  always  been  based  —  rightly  or  wrongly 
—  on  religious  faith,  that  moral  transgressions  have 
always  been  regarded  as  not  merely  wrongs  done 
to  a  man's  neighbour,  but  also  as  offences  against 
the  god  or  gods  of  the  community,  that  the  person 
suffering  from  foul  wrong  for  which  he  can  get  no 
human  redress  has  always  appealed  from  man  to 
God,  and  that  the  remorse  of  the  wrong-doer  who 
has  evaded  human  punishment  has  always  taken 
shape  in  the  fear  of  what  God  may  yet  do. 

Those  who  desire  to  prove  that  at  the  present  day 
morality  can  exist  apart  from  religion,  and  that  in 
the  future  it  will  do  so,  finding  its  basis  in  humani- 
tarianism  and  not  in  religion,  are  moved  to  show 
that  as  a  matter  of  historic  fact  religion  and  morality 
have  been  things  apart.  We  have  examined  the  asser- 
tion that  religion  in  its  lowest  forms  is  not  concerned 
with  morality;  and  we  have  attempted  to  show 
that  the  god  of  a  community,  or  the  spirit  worshipped 
by  a  community,  is  necessarily  a  being  conceived  as 
concerned  with  the  interests  of  the  community  and 
as  hostile  to  those  who  violate  the  customs  —  which 
is  to  transgress  the  morality  —  of  the  community. 
But  even  if  this  be  admitted,  it  may  still  be  said  that 
it  does  not  in  the  least  disprove  the  assertion  that 


222  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

morality  existed  before  religion  did.  The  theory 
we  are  examining  freely  admits  that  religion  is 
supposed,  in  certain  stages  of  the  history  of  humanity, 
to  reenforce  morality  and  to  be  necessary  in  the  inter- 
est of  morals,  though  eventually  it  is  found  that 
morality  needs  no  such  support ;  and  not  only  needs 
now  no  such  support  but  never  did  need  it ;  and  the 
fact  that  it  did  not  need  it  is  shown  by  demonstrating 
the  existence  of  morality  before  religion  existed. 
If,  then,  it  be  admitted  that  religion  from  the  mo- 
ment it  first  appeared  reenforced  morality,  and  did 
not  pass  through  a  non-moral  period  first,  still  mo- 
rality may  have  existed  before  religion  was  evolved, 
and  must  have  so  existed  if  morality  and  religion 
are  things  essentially  apart.  What  evidence  then  is 
there  on  the  point?  We  find  Mr.  Hobhouse  saying 
(I,  80)  that  "at  almost,  if  not  quite,  the  lowest  stages" 
of  human  development  there  are  "certain  actions 
which  are  resented  as  involving  the  community  as 
a  whole  in  misfortune  and  danger.  These  include, 
besides  actual  treason,  conduct  which  brings  upon 
the  people  the  wrath  of  God,  or  of  certain  spirits,  or 
which  violates  some  mighty  and  mysterious  taboo. 
The  actions  most  frequently  regarded  in  this  light  are 
certain  breaches  of  the  marriage  law  and  witchcraft." 


MORALITY  223 

These  offences,  we  are  told  (ib.,  82),  endanger  the 
community  itself,  and  the  punishment  is  "  prompted 
by  the  sense  of  a  danger  to  the  whole  community." 
Here,  then,  from  the  beginning  we  find  that  offences 
against  the  common  good  are  punished,  not  simply 
as  such,  but  as  misconduct  bringing  on  the  commu- 
nity, and  not  merely  on  the  offender,  the  wrath  of  gods 
or  spirits.  In  other  words  —  Mr.  Hobhouse's  words, 
p.  119  —  "in  the  evolution  of  public  justice,  we  find 
that  at  the  outset  the  community  interferes  mainly 
on  what  we  may  call  supernatural  grounds  only  with 
actions  which  are  regarded  as  endangering  its  own 
existence."  We  may  then  fairly  say  that  if  the  com- 
munity inflicts  punishments  mainly  on  supernatural 
grounds  from  the  time  when  the  evolution  of  public 
justice  first  begins,  then  morality  from  its  very  be- 
ginning was  reenforced  —  indeed  prompted  —  by 
religion.  The  morality  was  indeed  only  the  custom 
of  the  community;  but  violation  of  the  custom  was 
from  the  beginning  regarded  as  a  religious  offence 
and  was  punished  on  supernatural  grounds. 

The  view  that  morality  and  religion  are  essen- 
tially distinct,  that  morality  not  only  can  stand  alone, 
without  support  from  religion,  but  has  in  reality 
always  stood  without  such  support  —  however  much 


224  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

the  fact  has  been  obscured  by  religious  preposses- 
sions —  this  view  receives  striking  confirmation 
from  the  current  and  generally  accepted  theory  of  the 
origin  and  nature  of  justice.  That  theory  traces 
the  origin  of  justice  back  to  the  feeling  of  resentment 
experienced  by  the  individual  against  the  particular 
cause  of  his  pain  (Westermarck,  Origin  and  Develop- 
ment of  the  Moral  Ideas,  I,  22).  Resentment  leads 
to  retaliation  and  takes  the  form  of  revenge.  Ven- 
geance, at  first  executed  by  the  person  injured  (or 
by  his  kin,  if  he  be  killed),  comes  eventually,  if 
slowly,  to  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  person 
injured  or  his  avengers,  and  to  be  exercised  by  the 
State  in  the  interests  of  the  community  and  in  fur- 
therance, not  of  revenge,  but  of  justice  and  the  good 
of  society.  Thus  not  only  the  origin  of  justice, 
but  the  whole  course  of  its  growth  and  develop- 
ment, is  entirely  independent  of  religion  and  reli- 
gious considerations.  Throughout,  the  individual 
and  society  are  the  only  parties  involved;  the  gods 
do  not  appear  —  or,  if  they  do  appear,  they  are  intru- 
sive and  superfluous.  If  this  be  the  true  view  of 
the  history  and  nature  of  justice,  it  may  —  and 
probably  must  —  be  the  truth  about  the  whole  of 
morality  and  not  only  about  justice.  We  have  but 


MORALITY  225 

to  follow  Dr.  Westermarck  (ib.,  p.  21)  in  grouping 
the  moral  emotions  under  the  two  heads  of  emo- 
tions of  approval  and  emotions  of  disapproval,  we 
have  but  to  note  with  him  that  both  groups  belong 
to  the  class  of  retributive  emotions,  and  we  see 
that  the  origin  and  history  of  justice  are  typical 
of  the  origin  and  history  of  morals:  morality  in 
general,  just  as  much  as  justice  in  particular,  both 
originates  independently  of  religion  and  developes 
—  where  moral  progress  is  made  —  independently 
of  religion. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  examine  this  view  of  the 
relation  of  religion  and  morality  and  to  consider 
whether  their  absolute  independence  of  each  other 
is  historic  fact.  It  traces  back  justice  to  the  feeling 
of  resentment  experienced  by  the  individual;  but 
if  the  individual  ever  existed  by  himself  and  apart 
from  society,  there  could  neither  then  be  justice  nor 
anything  analogous  to  justice,  for  justice  implies, 
not  merely  a  plurality  of  individuals,  but  a  society ; 
it  is  a  social  virtue.  The  individual  existing  by 
himself  and  apart  from  society  is  not  a  historic  fact 
but  an  impossible  abstraction  —  a  conception  essen- 
tially false  because  it  expresses  something  which 
neither  exists  nor  has  existed  nor  could  possibly 
Q 


226  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

exist.  The  origin  of  justice  —  or  of  any  virtue  — 
cannot  be  found  in  the  impossible  and  self-contra- 
dictory conception  of  the  individual  existing  apart 
from  society;  it  cannot  be  found  in  a  mere  plurality 
of  such  individuals:  it  can  only  be  found  in  a 
society  —  whether  that  society  have  the  organisation 
of  a  family,  a  tribe,  or  a  nation.  Justice  in  particu- 
lar and  morality  in  general,  like  religion,  imply 
the  existence  of  a  society;  neither  is  a  merely  indi- 
vidual affair.  Justice  is,  as  Mr.  Hobhouse  states, 
"public  action  taken  for  the  sake  of  public  safety" 
(I,  83) :  it  is,  from  the  outset  of  its  history,  public 
action ;  and  back  of  that  we  cannot  go,  for  the  indi- 
vidual did  not,  as  a  matter  of  history,  exist  before 
society,  and  could  not  so  have  existed. 

In  the  next  place,  justice  is  not  the  resentment  of 
any  individual,  it  is  the  sentiment  of  the  community 
expressing  itself  in  public  action,  taken  not  for  the 
sake  of  any  individual,  but  for  the  sake  of  public 
safety.  Its  object  from  the  beginning  is  not  the  grati- 
fication of  individual  resentment,  but  the  safety  and 
welfare  of  the  community  which  takes  common 
action.  Proof  of  this,  if  proof  were  needed,  would 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  existence  of  the  indi- 
vidual, as  such,  is  not  recognised.  Not  only  does 


MORALITY  227 

the  community  which  has  suffered  in  the  wrong  done 
to  any  of  its  members  take  action  as  a  community ; 
it  proceeds,  not  against  the  individual  who  has  in- 
flicted the  wrong,  but  against  the  community  to 
which  he  belongs.  "The  wrong  done,"  is,  as  Mr. 
Hobhouse  says  (I,  91),  "the  act  of  the  family  or  clan 
and  may  be  avenged  on  any  member  of  that  family 
or  clan."  There  is  collective  responsibility  for  the 
wrong  done,  just  as  there  is  collective  responsibility 
for  righting  it. 

If,  now,  we  enquire,  What  are  the  earliest  offences 
against  which  public  action  is  taken?  and  why? 
we  may  remember  that  Mr.  Hobhouse  has  stated 
them  to  be  witchcraft  and  breaches  of  the  marriage 
law;  and  that  the  punishment  of  those  offences 
corresponds,  as  he  has  said,  "roughly  to  our  own 
administration  of  justice"  (I,  81).  Now,  in  the  case 
of  breaches  of  the  marriage  laws  —  mating  with  a 
cousin  on  the  mother's  side  instead  of  with  a  cousin 
on  the  father's  side,  marrying  into  a  forbidden 
class  —  it  is  obvious  that  there  is  no  individual  who 
has  suffered  injury  and  that  there  is  no  individual 
to  experience  resentment.  It  is  the  community 
that  suffers  or  is  expected  to  suffer;  and  it  expects 
to  suffer,  because  it,  in  the  person  of  one  of  its  mem- 


228  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

bers,  has  offended.  Collectively  it  is  responsible 
for  the  misdeeds  of  its  members.  Whom,  then,  has 
it  offended  ?  To  whom  is  it  responsible  ?  Who  will 
visit  it  with  punishment,  unless  it  makes  haste  to  set 
itself  right  ?  The  answer  given  by  a  certain  tribe  of 
the  Sea  Dyaks  makes  the  matter  clear:  they,  Mr. 
St.  John  tells  us  in  his  Life  in  the  Forests  of  the  Far 
East  (I,  63,  quoted  by  Westermarck,  I,  49),  "are  of 
opinion  that  an  unmarried  girl  proving  with  child 
must  be  offensive  to  the  superior  powers,  who,  in- 
stead of  always  chastising  the  individual,  punish  the 
tribe  by  misfortunes  happening  to  its  members. 
They  therefore  on  the  discovery  of  the  pregnancy 
fine  the  lovers,  and  sacrifice  a  pig  to  propitiate 
offended  heaven,  and  to  avert  that  sickness  or  those 
misfortunes  that  might  otherwise  follow."  That  is, 
of  course,  only  one  instance.  But  we  may  safely 
say  that  the  marriage  law  is  generally  ascribed  to 
the  ordinance  of  the  gods,  even  in  the  lowest  tribes, 
I  and  that  breaches  of  it  are  offences  against  heaven. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  prove,  it  need  only  be  men- 
tioned, that  witchcraft  is  conspicuously  offensive 
to  the  religious  sentiment,  and  is  punished  as  an 
offence  against  the  god  or  gods.  When,  then,  we 
consider  the  origin  and  nature  of  justice,  not  from 


MORALITY  229 

an  abstract  and  a  priori  point  of  view,  but  in  the  light 
of  historic  fact,  so  far  from  finding  that  it  originates 
and  operates  in  complete  independence  of  religion, 
we  discover  that  from  the  beginning  the  offences 
with  which  the  justice  of  the  primitive  community 
deals  are  offences,  not  against  the  community,  but 
against  heaven.  "In  the  evolution  of  public  jus- 
tice," as  Mr.  Hobhouse  says,  "at  the  outset  the  com- 
munity interferes  mainly  on  what  we  may  call 
supernatural  grounds."  From  the  beginning  mis- 
deeds are  punished,  not  merely  as  wrongs  done  to 
society,  but  as  wrong  done  to  the  gods  and  as  wrong- 
doing for  which  the  community  collectively  is  re- 
sponsible to  the  gods.  Justice  from  the  beginning  is 
not  individual  resentment,  but  "public  action  taken 
for  the  public  safety."  It  is  not,  as  Mr.  Hobhouse 
calls  it,  "revenge  guided  and  limited  by  custom." 
It  is  the  customary  action  of  the  community  taken 
to  avert  divine  vengeance.  The  action  taken  assumes 
in  extreme  cases  the  form  of  the  death  penalty ;  but 
its  usual  form  of  action  is  that  of  taboo. 

If  the  origin  of  justice  is  to  be  sought  in  something 
that  is  not  justice,  if  justice  in  particular  and  mo- 
rality in  general  are  to  be  treated  as  having  been 
evolved  out  of  something  which  was  in  a  way  different 


230  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

from  them  and  yet  in  a  way  must  have  contained 
them,  inasmuch  as  they  came  forth  from  it,  we  shall 
do  well  to  look  for  that  something,  not  in  the  unhis- 
torical,  unreal  abstraction  of  an  imaginary  individual, 
apart  from  society,  but  in  society  itself  when  it  is  as 
yet  not  clearly  conscious  of  the  justice  and  morality 
at  work  within  it.  Such  a  stage  in  the  development 
of  society  is,  I  think,  to  be  discerned. 

We  have  seen  that,  "at  almost,  if  not  quite,  the 
lowest  stages "  of  human  development,  there  is 
something  which,  according  to  Mr.  Hobhouse,  cor- 
responds "roughly  to  our  own  administration  of 
justice"  (I,  81).  But  this  rough  justice  implies 
conscious,  deliberate  action  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
munity. It  implies  that  the  community  as  such 
makes  some  sort  of  enquiry  into  what  can  be  the 
cause  of  the  misfortunes  which  are  befalling  it; 
and  that,  having  found  out  the  person  responsible, 
it  deliberately  takes  the  steps  it  deems  necessary 
for  putting  itself  right  with  the  supernatural  power 
that  has  sent  the  sickness  or  famine.  Now,  such 
conscious,  purposive,  deliberate  action  may  and 
probably  does  take  place  at  almost  the  lowest  stage 
of  development  of  society;  but  not,  we  may  surmise, 
at  quite  the  lowest.  What  eventually  is  done  con- 


MORALITY  231 

sciously  and  deliberately  is  probably  done  in  the 
first  place  much  more  summarily  and  automatically. 
And  —  in  quite  the  lowest  stage  of  social  develop- 
ment —  it  is  by  means  of  the  action  of  taboo  that 
summary  and  automatic  punishment  for  breaches  of 
the  custom  of  the  community  is  inflicted.  Its  action 
is  automatic  and  immediate:  merely  to  come  in 
contact  with  the  forbidden  thing  is  to  become  ta- 
booed yourself ;  and  so  great  is  the  horror  and  dread 
of  such  contact,  even  if  made  unwittingly,  that  it  is 
capable  of  causing,  when  discovered,  death.  Like 
the  justice,  however,  of  which  it  is  the  forerunner, 
it  does  not  result  always  in  death,  nor  does  it  produce 
that  effect  in  most  cases.  But  what  it  does  do  is 
to  make  the  offender  himself  taboo  and  as  infectious 
as  the  thing  that  rendered  him  taboo.  Here,  too, 
the  action  of  taboo,  in  excommunicating  the  offender, 
anticipates,  or  rather  foreshadows,  the  action  of 
justice  when  it  excludes  the  guilty  person  from  the 
community  and  makes  of  him  an  outlaw.  Again,  in 
the  rough  justice  found  at  almost,  though  not  quite, 
the  lowest  stages,  the  earliest  offences  of  which 
official  notice,  so  to  speak,  is  taken,  are  offences  for 
which  the  punishment  —  disease  or  famine,  etc.  - 
falls  on  the  community  as  a  whole,  because  the  com- 


232  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

munity,  in  the  person  of  one  of  its  members,  has 
offended  as  a  whole  against  heaven.  In  the  earlier 
stage  of  feeling,  also,  which  survives  where  taboo 
prevails,  it  is  the  community  as  a  whole  which  may 
be  infected,  and  which  must  suffer  if  the  offender  is 
allowed  to  spread  the  infection ;  it  is  the  community, 
as  a  whole,  which  is  concerned  to  thrust  out  the 
guilty  person  —  every  one  shuns  him  because  he  is 
taboo.  Thus,  in  this  the  earliest  stage,  the  offender 
against  the  custom  of  the  community  is  outlawed 
just  as  effectively  as  in  later  stages  of  social  develop- 
ment. But  no  formal  sentence  is  pronounced;  no 
meeting  of  the  men  or  the  elders  of  the  community 
is  held  to  try  the  offender;  no  reason  is  given  or 
sought  why  the  offence  should  thus  be  punished.  The 
operation  of  taboo  is  like  that  of  the  laws  of  nature : 
the  man  who  eats  poisonous  food  dies  with  no  reason 
given.  A  reason  may  eventually  be  found  by  science, 
and  is  eventually  discovered,  though  the  process  of 
discovery  is  slow,  and  many  mistakes  are  made, 
and  many  false  reasons  are  given  before  the  true 
reason  is  found.  So,  too,  the  true  reason  for  the  pro- 
hibition of  many  of  the  things,  which  the  community 
feels  to  be  forbidden  and  pronounced  to  be  taboo,  is 
found,  with  the  progress  of  society  —  when  it  does 


MORALITY  233 

progress,  which  is  not  always  —  to  be  that  they  are 
immoral  and  irreligious,  though  here,  too,  many 
mistakes  are  made  before  true  morality  and  true 
religion  are  found.  But  at  the  outset  no  reason  is 
given :  the  things  are  simply  offensive  to  the  com- 
munity and  are  tabooed  as  such.  We,  looking  back 
at  that  stage  in  the  evolution  of  society,  can  see  that 
amongst  the  things  thus  offensive  and  tabooed  are 
some  which,  in  later  stages,  are  equally  offensive, 
but  are  now  forbidden  for  a  reason  that  can  be 
formulated  and  given,  viz.  that  they  are  offences 
against  the  law  of  morality  and  the  law  of  God. 
That  reason,  at  the  outset  of  society,  may  scarcely 
have  been  consciously  present  to  the  mind  of  man: 
progress,  in  part  at  least,  has  consisted  in  the  disco v-  V 
ery  of  the  reasons  of  things.  But  that  man  did  from  ' 
the  beginning  avoid  some  of  the  things  which  are 
forbidden  by  morality  and  religion,  and  that  those 
things  were  taboo  to  him,  is  beyond  the  possibility 
of  doubt.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  in  the  prohi- 
bition and  punishment  of  them  there  was  inchoate 
justice  and  inchoate  religion.  Such  prohibition 
was  due  to  the  collective  action  and  expressed  the 
collective  feeling  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 
And  it  is  from  such  social  action  and  feeling  that 


234  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

justice,  I  suggest,  has  been  evolved  —  not  from  the 
feeling  of  resentment  experienced  by  the  individual 
as  an  individual.  Personal  resentment  and  personal 
revenge  may  have  stimulated  justice  to  action. 
But,  by  the  hypothesis  we  have  been  examining, 
they  were  not  justice.  Neither  have  they  been 
transformed  into  justice:  they  still  exist  as  some- 
thing distinct  from  justice  and  capable  of  pervert- 
ing it. 

The  form  which  justice  takes  in  the  period  which 
is  almost,  but  not  quite,  the  lowest  stage  of  human 
evolution  is  the  sense  of  the  collective  responsibility 
of  the  community  for  all  its  actions,  that  is  to  say, 
for  the  acts  of  all  its  members.  And  that  responsi- 
bility in  its  earliest  shape  is  felt  to  be  a  responsibility 
to  heaven,  to  the  supernatural  powers  that  send  dis- 
ease and  famine  upon  the  community.  In  those 
days  no  man  sins  to  himself  alone,  just  as,  in  still 
earlier  days,  no  man  could  break  a  taboo  without 
becoming  a  source  of  danger  to  the  whole  community. 
The  wrong-doer  has  offended  against  the  super- 
natural powers  and  has  brought  down  calamity 
upon  the  community.  He  is  therefore  punished, 
directly  as  an  offender  against  the  god  of  the  com- 
munity, and  indirectly  for  having  involved  the  corn- 


MORALITY  235 

munity  in  suffering.  In  Dr.  Westermarck's  words 
(I,  194),  there  is  "  genuine  indignation  against  the 
offender,  both  because  he  rebels  against  God,  and 
because  he  thereby  exposes  the  whole  community 
to  supernatural  dangers."  But  though  society  for 
many  long  centuries  continues  to  punish  rebellion 
against  God,  still  in  the  long  run  it  ceases,  or  tends 
to  cease,  doing  so.  Its  reason  for  so  ceasing  is  inter- 
preted differently  by  different  schools  of  thought. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  is  said  in  derision,  let  the  gods 
punish  offences  against  the  gods  —  the  implication 
being  that  there  are  no  such  offences  to  punish, 
because  there  is  no  god.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
said,  "I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord"  — the  implica- 
tion being  that  man  may  not  assume  to  be  the  min- 
ister of  divine  vengeance.  If,  then,  we  bear  in  mind 
that  the  fact  may  be  interpreted  in  either  of  these 
different  ways,  we  shall  not  fall  into  the  fallacy 
of  imagining  that  the  mere  existence  of  the  fact 
suffices  to  prove  either  interpretation  to  be  true. 
Yet  this  fallacy  plays  its  part  in  lending  fictitious 
support  to  the  doctrine  that  morality  is  in  no  wise 
dependent  upon  religion.  The  offences  now  pun- 
ished by  law,  it  is  argued,  are  no  longer  punished 
as  offences  against  religion,  but  solely  as  offences 


236  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

against  the  good  of  the  community.  To  this  argu- 
ment the  reply  is  that  men  believe  the  good  of  the 
community  to  be  the  will  of  God,  and  do  not 
believe  murder,  theft,  adultery,  etc.,  to  be  merely 
offences  against  man's  laws.  Overlooking  this 
fact,  which  is  fatal  to  the  doctrine  that  morality  is 
in  no  wise  dependent  on  religion,  the  argument  we 
are  discussing  proceeds  to  maintain  that  the  basis 
for  the  enforcement  of  morality  by  the  law  is  recog- 
nised by  every  one  who  knows  anything  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  law  to  be  what  is  good  for  the  community 
and  its  members:  fraud  and  violence  are  punished 
as  such,  and  not  because  they  are  offences  against 
this  or  that  religion.  The  fact  that  the  law  no 
longer  punishes  them  as  offences  against  God  suffices 
to  show  that  it  is  only  as  offences  against  humanity 
that  there  is  any  sense,  or  ever  was  any  sense,  in 
punishing  them.  Religion  may  have  reenforced 
morality  very  usefully  at  one  time,  by  making  out 
that  moral  misdeeds  were  offences  against  God, 
but  such  arguments  are  not  now  required.  The 
good  and  the  well-being  of  humanity  is  in  itself 
sufficient  argument.  Humanitarianism  is  taking 
the  place  of  religion,  and  by  so  doing  is  demonstrat- 
ing that  morality  is,  as  it  always  has  been,  indepen- 


MORALITY  237 

dent  of  religion ;  and  that  in  truth  religion  has  built 
upon  it,  not  it  upon  religion.  As  Hoffding  puts  it 
(p.  328):  "Religious  faith  .  .  .  assumes  an  inde- 
pendent human  ethic  developed  historically  under 
the  practical  influence  of  the  ethical  feeling  of  man." 
That  is  to  say,  morality  is  in  Hoffding's  view  inde- 
pendent of  religion,  and  prior  to  religion,  both  as  a 
matter  of  logic  and  of  history.  As  a  matter  of  his- 
tory —  of  the  history  of  religion  —  this  seems  to 
me,  for  the  reasons  already  given,  to  be  contrary 
to  the  facts  as  they  are  known.  The  real  reason 
for  maintaining  that  morality  is  and  must  be  —  and 
must  have  been  —  independent  of  religion,  seems 
to  me  to  be  a  philosophical  reason.  I  may  give  it 
in  Hoffding's  own  words:  "What  other  aims  and 
qualities,"  he  asks  (p.  324),  "could  man  attribute 
to  his  gods  or  conceive  as  divine,  but  those  which  he 
has  learnt  from  his  own  experience  to  recognise 
as  the  highest?"  The  answer  expected  to  the  ques- 
tion plainly  is  not  merely  that  it  is  from  experience 
that  man  learns,  but  that  man  has  no  experience  of 
God  from  which  he  could  learn.  The  answer  given 
by  Mr.  Hobhouse,  in  the  concluding  words  of  his 
Morals  in  Evolution  is  that  "the  collective  wisdom" 
of  man  "is  all  that  we  directly  know  of  the  Divine." 


238  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Here,  too,  no  direct  access  to  God  is  allowed  to  be 
possible  to  man.  It  is  from  his  experience  of  other 
men  —  perhaps  even  of  himself  and  his  own  doings 
—  that  man  learns  all  he  knows  of  God :  but  he  has 
himself  no  experience  of  God.  Obviously,  then,  from 
this  humanitarian  point  of  view,  what  a  man  goes 
through  in  his  religious  moments  is  not  experience, 
and  we  are  mistaken  if  we  imagine  that  it  was  ex- 
perience ;  it  is  only  a  misinterpretation  of  experience. 
It  is  on  the  supposition  that  we  are  mistaken,  on  the 
assumption  that  we  make  a  misinterpretation,  that 
the  argument  is  built  to  prove  that  morality  is  and 
must  be  independent  of  religion.  Argument  to 
show,  or  proof  to  demonstrate,  that  we  had  not  the 
experience,  or,  that  we  mistook  something  else  for 
it,  is,  of  course,  not  forthcoming.  But  if  we  hold 
fast  to  our  conviction,  we  are  told  that  we  are  fleeing 
"to  the  bosom  of  faith." 

Until  some  better  argument  is  produced,  we  may 
be  well  content  not  merely  to  flee  but  to  rest  there. 


CHRISTIANITY 

THE  subject  dealt  with  in  this  lecture  will  be 
the  place  of  Christianity  in  the  evolution  of  religion ; 
and  I  shall  approach  it  by  considering  the  place 
of  religion  in  the  evolution  of  humanity.  It  will 
be  therefore  advisable,  indeed  necessary,  for  me 
to  consider  what  is  meant  by  evolution;  and  I  wish 
to  begin  by  explaining  the  point  of  view  from  which 
I  propose  to  approach  the  three  ideas  of  evolution, 
of  the  evolution  of  humanity  and  the  evolution  of 
religion. 

The  individual  exists,  and  can  only  exist,  in  society. 
Society  cannot  exist  without  individuals  as  mem- 
bers thereof;  and  the  individual  cannot  exist  save 
in  society.  From  this  it  follows  that  from  one 
point  of  view  the  individual  may  be  regarded  as 
a  means  —  a  means  by  which  society  attains  its 
end  or  purpose:  every  one  of  us  has  his  place  or 
function  in  society;  and  society  thrives  according 
as  each  member  performs  his  function  and  dis- 
charges his  duty.  From  another  point  of  view 

239 


240  COMPARATIVE    RELIGION 

the  individual  may  be  regarded  as  an  end.  If 
man  is  a  social  animal,  if  men  live  in  society,  it 
is  because  so  alone  can  a  man  do  what  is  best  for 
himself:  it  is  by  means  of  society  that  he  realises 
his  end.  It  is  then  from  this  proposition,  viz.  that 
the  individual  is  both  a  means  and  an  end,  that 
I  wish  to  approach  the  idea  of  evolution. 

I  will  begin  by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that 
that  proposition  is  true  both  statically,  that  is  to 
say,  is  true  of  the  individual's  position  in  a  com- 
munity, and  is  also  true  dynamically,  that  is  to  say, 
is  true  of  his  place  in  the  process  of  evolution.  On 
the  former  point,  that  the  proposition  is  true  stati- 
cally, of  the  position  of  the  individual  in  the  com- 
munity, I  need  say  but  little.  In  moral  philosophy 
it  is  the  utilitarian  school  which  has  particularly 
insisted  upon  this  truth.  That  school  has  steadily 
argued  that,  in  the  distribution  of  happiness  or  of 
the  good,  every  man  is  to  count  as  one,  and  nobody 
to  count  as  more  than  one  —  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
community  the  individual  is  to  be  regarded  as  the 
end.  The  object  to  be  aimed  at  is  not  happiness 
in  general  and  no  one's  happiness  in  particular, 
but  the  happiness  of  each  and  every  individual. 
It  is  the  individual  and  his  happiness  which  is  the 


CHRISTIANITY  241 

end,  for  the  sake  of  which  society  exists  and  to  which 
it  is  the  means;  otherwise  the  individual  might 
derive  no  benefit  from  society.  But  if  the  truth 
that  the  individual  is  an  end  as  well  as  a  means 
is  recognised  by  moral  philosophy,  that  truth  has 
also  played  at  least  an  equally  important  part  in 
political  philosophy.  It  is  the  very  breath  of  the 
cry  for  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  —  a  cry 
wrung  out  from  the  heart  of  man  by  the  system  of 
oppression  which  denied  that  the  ordinary  citizen 
had  a  right  to  be  anything  but  a  means  for  pro- 
curing enjoyment  to  the  members  of  the  ruling  class. 
The  truth  that  any  one  man  —  whatever  his  place 
in  society,  whatever  the  colour  of  his  skin  —  has  as 
much  right  as  any  other  to  be  treated  as  an  end 
and  that  no  man  was  merely  a  means  to  the  en- 
joyment or  happiness  or  well-being  of  another,  was 
the  charter  for  the  emancipation  of  slaves.  It  is 
still  the  magna  charta  for  the  freedom  of  every 
member  of  the  human  race.  No  man  is  or  can  be 
a  chattel  —  a  thing  existing  for  no  other  purpose 
than  to  subserve  the  interests  of  its  owner  and  to 
be  a  means  to  his  ends.  But  though  from  the 
truth  that  the  individual  is  in  himself  an  end  as  well 
as  a  means,  it  follows  that  all  men  have  the  right  to 
S 


242  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

freedom,  it  does  not  follow  as  a  logical  inference 
that  all  men  are  equal  as  means  —  as  means  to  the 
material  happiness  or  to  the  moral  improvement 
of  society. 

I  need  not  further  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  stati- 
cally as  regards  the  relations  of  men  to  one  another 
in  society  at  any  moment,  the  truth  is  fully  recognised 
that  the  individual  is  not  merely  a  means  to  the 
happiness  or  well-being  of  others,  but  is  also  in  him- 
self an  end.  But  when  we  consider  the  proposition 
dynamically,  when  we  wish  to  find  out  the  part  it 
has  played  as  one  of  the  forces  at  work  in  evolu- 
tion, we  find  that  its  truth  has  been  far  from  fully 
recognised  —  partly  perhaps  because  utilitarianism 
dates  from  a  time  when  evolution,  or  the  bearing 
of  it,  was  not  understood.  But  the  truth  is  at  least 
of  as  great  importance  dynamically  as  it  is  statically. 
And  on  one  side,  its  truth  and  the  importance  of 
its  truth  has  been  fully  developed:  that  the  indi- 
vidual is  a  means  to  an  end  beyond  him;  and  that, 
dynamically,  he  has  been  and  is  a  factor  in  evolu- 
tion, and  as  a  factor  merely  a  means  and  nothing 
else  —  all  this  has  been  worked  out  fully,  if  not 
to  excess.  The  other  side  of  the  truth,  the  fact 
that  the  individual  is  always  an  end,  has,  however, 


CHRISTIANITY  243 

been  as  much  neglected  by  the  scientific  evolutionist 
as  it  was  by  the  slave-driver:  he  has  been  liable 
to  regard  men  as  chattels,  as  instruments  by  which 
the  work  of  evolution  is  carried  on.  The  work  has 
got  to  be  done  (by  men  amongst  other  animals  and 
things),  things  have  to  be  evolved,  evolution  must  go 
on.  But,  why?  and  for  whom?  with  what  purpose 
and  for  whose  benefit?  with  what  end?  are  ques- 
tions which  science  leaves  to  be  answered  by  those 
people  who  are  foolish  enough  to  ask  them.  Science 
is  concerned  simply  with  the  individual  as  a  means, 
as  one  of  the  means,  whereby  evolution  is  carried 
on ;  and  doubtless  science  is  justified  —  if  only 
on  the  principle  of  the  division  of  labour  —  in  con- 
fining itself  to  the  department  of  enquiry  which 
it  takes  in  hand  and  in  refusing  to  travel  beyond  it. 
Any  theory  of  man,  therefore,  or  of  the  evolution 
of  humanity,  which  professes  to  base  itself  strictly 
on  scientific  fact  and  to  exclude  other  considera- 
tions as  unscientific  and  therefore  as  unsafe  material 
to  build  on,  will  naturally,  and  perhaps  necessarily, 
be  dominated  by  the  notion  that  the  individual 
exists  as  a  factor  in  evolution,  as  one  of  the  means 
by  which,  and  not  as  in  any  sense  the  end  for  which, 
evolution  is  carried  on. 


244  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

Such  seems  to  be  the  case  with  the  theory  of 
humanitarianism.  It  bases  itself  upon  science, 
upon  experience,  and  rules  out  communion  with 
God  as  not  being  a  scientific  fact  or  a  fact  of  ex- 
perience at  all.  Based  upon  science,  it  is  a  theory 
which  seeks  amongst  other  things  to  assign  to 
religion  its  place  in  the  evolution  of  humanity. 
According  to  the  theory,  the  day  of  religion  is  over, 
its  part  played  out,  its  function  in  the  evolution  of 
humanity  discharged.  According  to  this  theory, 
three  stages  may  be  discerned  in  the  evolution  of 
humanity  when  we  regard  man  as  a  moral  being, 
as  an  ethical  consciousness.  Those  three  stages 
may  be  characterised  first  as  custom,  next  religion, 
and  finally  humanitarianism. 

By  the  theory,  in  the  first  stage  —  that  of  custom 

—  the  spirits  to  whom  cult  is  paid  are  vindictive. 
In    the    second    stage  —  that    of    religion  —  man, 
having  attained  to  a  higher  morality,   credits  his 
gods  with  that  higher  morality.     In  the  third  stage 

—  that   of    humanitarianism  —  he   finds   that    the 
gods  are  but   lay  figures  on  which   the  robes  of 
righteousness  have  been  displayed  that  man  alone 
can   wear  —  when   he   is   perfect.     He   is   not   yet 
perfect.     If   he  were,  the    evolution    of   humanity 


CHRISTIANITY  245 

would  be  attained  —  whereas  at  present  it  is  as 
yet  in  process.  The  end  of  evolution  is  not  yet 
attained:  it  is  to  establish,  in  some  future  genera- 
tion, a  perfect  humanity.  For  that  end  we  must 
work;  to  it  we  may  know  that,  as  a  matter  of  scien- 
tific evolution,  we  are  working.  On  it,  we  may  be 
satisfied,  man  will  not  enter  in  our  generation. 

Now  this  theory  of  the  evolution  of  humanity, 
and  of  the  place  religion  takes  in  that  evolution,  is 
in  essential  harmony  with  the  scientific  treatment  of 
the  evolution  theory,  inasmuch  as  it  treats  of  the 
individual  solely  as  an  instrument  to  something 
other  than  himself,  as  a  means  of  producing  a  state 
of  humanity  to  which  he  will  not  belong.  But  if 
the  assumption  that  the  individual  is  always  a  means 
and  never  an  end  in  himself  be  false,  then  a  theory 
of  the  evolution  of  man  (as  an  ethical  consciousness) 
which  is  based  on  that  wrong  assumption  will 
itself  be  wrong.  If  each  individual  is  an  end,  as 
valuable  and  as  important  as  any  other  individual ; 
if  each  counts  for  one  and  not  less  than  any  one 
other,  —  then  his  end  and  his  good  cannot  lie  in  the 
perfection  of  some  future  generation.  In  that  case, 
his  end  would  be  one  that  ex  hypothesi  he  could 
never  enjoy,  a  rest  into  which  he  could  never  enter; 


246  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

and  consequently  it  would  be  an  irrational  end,  and 
could  not  serve  as  a  basis  for  a  rationalist  theory 
of  ethics.  Man's  object  (to  be  a  rational  object) 
must  have  reference  to  a  society  of  which  he  may 
be  a  member.  The  realisation  of  his  object,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  referred  to  a  stage  of  society  yet  to 
come,  on  earth,  after  he  is  dead,  —  a  society  of 
which  he,  whether  dead  or  annihilated,  could  not 
be  a  member.  If,  then,  the  individual's  object  is 
to  be  a  rational  object,  as  the  humanitarian  or 
rationalist  assumes,  then  that  end  must  be  one  in 
which  he  can  share;  and  therefore  cannot  be  in 
this  world.  Nor  can  that  end  be  attained  by  doing 
man's  will  —  for  man's  will  may  be  evil,  and  re- 
gress as  well  as  progress  is  a  fact  in  the  evolution 
of  humanity;  its  attainment,  therefore,  must  be 
effected  by  doing  God's  will. 

The  truth  that  the  individual  is  an  end  as  well  as 
a  means  is,  I  suggest,  valuable  in  considering  the 
dynamics  as  well  as  the  statics  of  society.  At  least, 
it  saves  one  from  the  self-complacency  of  imagining 
that  one's  ancestors  existed  with  no  other  end  and 
for  no  higher  purpose  than  to  produce  —  me ;  and  if 
the  golden  days  anticipated  by  the  theory  of  humani- 
tarianism  ever  arrive,  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  the 


CHRISTIANITY  247 

men  of  that  time  will  find  it  just  as  intolerable  and 
revolting  as  we  do  now,  to  believe  that  past  genera- 
tions toiled  and  suffered  for  no  other  reason,  for  no 
other  end,  and  to  no  other  purpose  than  that  their 
successors  should  enter  into  the  fruits  of  their  labour. 
In  a  word,  the  theory  that  in  the  evolution  of  man  as 
an  ethical  consciousness,  as  a  moral  being,  religion 
is  to  be  superseded  by  humanitarianism,  is  only 
possible  so  long  as  we  deny  or  ignore  the  fact  that 
the  individual  is  an  end  and  not  merely  a  means. 
We  will  therefore  now  go  on  to  consider  the  evolu- 
tion of  religion  from  the  point  of  view  that  the  in- 
dividual is  in  himself  an  end  as  well  as  a  means. 
If,  of  the  world  religions,  we  take  that  which  is  the 
greatest,  as  measured  by  the  number  of  its  adherents, 
viz.  Buddhism,  we  shall  see  that,  tried  by  this  test, 
it  is  at  once  found  wanting.  The  object  at  which 
Buddhism  proclaims  that  man  should  aim  is  not 
the  development,  the  perfection,  and  the  realisation 
of  the  individual  to  the  fullest  extent :  it  is,  on  the 
contrary,  the  utter  and  complete  effacement  of  the 
individual,  so  that  he  is  not  merely  absorbed,  but 
absolutely  wiped  out,  in  nirvana.  In  the  atman, 
with  which  it  is  the  duty  of  man  to  seek  to  identify 
himself,  the  individuality  of  man  does  not  survive: 


248  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

it  simply  ceases  to  be.  Now  this  obliteration  of 
his  existence  may  seem  to  a  man  in  a  certain  mood 
desirable;  and  that  mood  may  be  cultivated,  as 
indeed  Buddhism  seeks  to  cultivate  it,  systematically. 
But  here  it  is  that  the  inner  inconsistency,  the  self- 
contradictoriness  of  Buddhism,  becomes  patent. 
The  individual,  to  do  anything,  must  exist.  If  he 
is  to  desire  nothing  save  to  cease  to  exist,  he  must 
exist  to  do  that.  But  the  teaching  of  Buddhism 
is  that  this  world  and  this  life  is  illusion  —  and 
further,  that  the  existence  of  the  individual  self 
is  precisely  the  most  mischievous  illusion,  that 
illusion  above  all  others  from  which  it  is  incumbent 
on  us  to  free  ourselves.  We  are  here  for  no  other 
end  than  to  free  ourselves  from  that  illusion.  Thus, 
then,  by  the  teaching  of  Buddhism  there  is  an  end, 
it  may  be  said,  for  the  individual  to  aim  at.  Yes! 
but  by  the  same  teaching  there  is  no  individual 
to  aim  at  it  —  individual  existence  is  the  most 
pernicious  of  all  illusions.  And  further,  by  the 
teaching,  the  final  end  and  object  of  religion  is  to 
get  rid  of  an  individual  existence,  which  does  not 
exist  to  be  got  rid  of,  and  which  it  is  an  illusion  to 
believe  in.  In  fine,  Buddhism  denies  that  the 
individual  is  either  an  end  or  a  means,  for  it  denies 


CHRISTIANITY  249 

the  existence  of  the  individual,  and  contradicts 
itself  in  that  denial.  The  individual  is  not  an  end 
—  the  happiness  or  immortality,  the  continued 
existence,  of  the  individual  is  not  to  be  aimed  at. 
Neither  is  he  a  means,  for  his  very  existence  is  an 
illusion,  and  as  such  is  an  obstacle  or  impediment 
which  has  to  be  removed,  in  order  that  he  who  is 
not  may  cease  to  do  what  he  has  never  begun  to  do, 
viz.  to  exist. 

In  Buddhism  we  have  a  developed  religion  — 
a  religion  which  has  been  developed  by  a  system 
of  philosophy,  but  scarcely,  as  religion,  improved 
by  it.  If,  now,  we  turn  to  other  religions  less  highly 
developed,  even  if  we  turn  to  religions  the  develop- 
ment of  which  has  been  early  arrested,  which  have 
never  got  beyond  the  stage  of  infantile  development, 
we  shall  find  that  all  proceed  on  the  assumption 
that  communion  between  man  and  God  is  possible 
and  does  occur.  In  all,  the  existence  of  the  in- 
dividual as  well  as  of  the  god  is  assumed,  even 
though  time  and  development  may  be  required  to 
realise,  even  inadequately,  what  is  contained  in  the 
assumption.  In  all,  and  from  the  beginning, 
religion  has  been  a  social  fact :  the  god  has  been  the 
god  of  the  community;  and,  as  such,  has  repre- 


250  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

sented  the  interests  of  the  community.  Those 
interests  have  been  regarded  not  merely  as  other, 
but  as  higher,  than  the  interests  of  the  individual, 
when  the  two  have  been  at  variance,  for  the  simple 
reason  (when  the  time  came  for  a  reason  to  be 
sought  and  given)  that  the  interests'  of  the  com- 
munity were  the  will  of  the  community's  god. 
Hence  at  all  times  the  man  who  has  postponed  his 
own  interests  to  those  under  the  sanction  of  the  god 
and  the  community  —  the  man  who  has  respected 
and  upheld  the  custom  of  the  community  —  has 
been  regarded  as  the  higher  type  of  man,  as  the  better 
man  from  the  religious  as  well  as  from  the  moral 
point  of  view;  while  the  man  who  has  sacrificed 
the  higher  interests  to  the  lower,  has  been  punished 
—  whether  by  the  automatic  action  of  taboo,  or 
the  deliberate  sentence  of  outlawry  —  as  one  who, 
by  breaking  custom,  has  offended  against  the  god 
and  so  brought  suffering  on  the  community. 

Now,  if  the  interests,  whether  of  the  individual 
or  the  community,  are  regarded  as  purely  earthly, 
the  divergence  between  them  must  be  utter  and 
irreconcileable ;  and  to  expect  the  individual  to 
forego  his  own  interests  must  be  eventually  dis- 
covered to  be,  as  it  fundamentally  is,  unreasonable. 


CHRISTIANITY  2  51 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  individual  to  forego 
them  is  (as,  in  a  cool  moment,  we  all  recognise  it 
to  be)  reasonable,  then  the  interests  under  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  god  and  the  community  —  the  higher 
interests  —  cannot  be  other  than,  they  must  be 
identical  with,  the  real  interests  of  the  individual. 
It  is  only  in  and  through  society  that  the  individual 
can  attain  his  highest  interests,  and  only  by  doing 
the  will  of  the  god  that  he  can  so  attain  them. 
Doubtless  —  despite  of  logic  and  feeling  —  in  all 
communities  all  individuals  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree  have  deliberately  preferred  the  lower  to  the 
higher,  and  in  so  doing  have  been  actuated  neither 
by  love  of  God  nor  by  love  of  their  fellow-man. 
But,  in  so  doing,  they  have  at  all  times,  in  the  latest 
as  well  as  the  earliest  stages  of  society,  been  felt  to 
be  breaching  the  very  basis  of  social  solidarity,  the 
maintenance  of  which  is  the  will  of  the  God  wor- 
shipped by  society. 

From  that  point  of  view  the  individual  is  regarded 
as  a  means.  But  he  is  also  in  himself  an  end,  in- 
trinsically as  valuable  as  any  other  member  of 
the  community,  and  therefore  an  end  which  society 
exists  to  further  and  promote.  It  is  impossible, 
therefore,  that  the  end,  viewed  as  that  which  society 


252  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

as  well  as  the  individual  aims  at,  and  which  society 
must  realise,  as  far  as  it  can  realise  it,  through  the 
individual,  should  be  one  which  can  only  be  attained 
by  some  future  state  of  society  in  which  he  does  not 
exist.  "The  kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you" 
and  not  something  to  which  you  cannot  attain. 
God  is  not  far  from  us  at  any  time.  That  truth  was 
implicit  at  all  stages  in  the  evolution  of  religion  — 
consciously  recognised,  perhaps  more,  perhaps  less, 
but  whether  more  or  less  consciously  recognised,  it 
was  there.  That  is  the  conviction  implied  in  the 
fact  that  man  everywhere  seeks  God.  If  he  seeks 
Him  in  plants,  in  animals,  in  stocks  or  stones,  that 
only  shows  that  man  has  tried  in  many  wrong 
directions  —  not  that  there  is  not  a  right  direction. 
It  is  the  general  law  of  evolution:  of  a  thousand 
seeds  thrown  out,  perhaps  one  alone  falls  into  good 
soil.  But  the  failure  of  the  999  avails  nothing 
against  the  fact  that  the  one  bears  fruit  abundantly. 
What  sanctifies  the  failures  is  that  they  were  attempts. 
We  indeed  may,  if  we  are  so  selfish  and  blind, 
regard  the  attempts  as  made  in  order  that  we  might 
succeed.  Certainly  we  profit  by  the  work  of  our 
ancestors,  —  or  rather  we  may  profit,  if  we  will. 
But  our  savage  ancestors  were  themselves  ends,  and 


CHRISTIANITY  253 

not  merely  means  to  our  benefit.  It  is  monstrous 
to  imagine  that  our  salvation  is  bought  at  the  cost 
of  their  condemnation.  No  man  can  do  more 
than  turn  to  such  light  as  there  may  be  to  guide 
him.  "To  him  that  hath,  shall  be  given,"  it  is 
true  —  but  every  man  at  every  time  had  something ; 
never  was  there  one  to  whom  nothing  was  given. 
To  us  at  this  day,  in  this  dispensation,  much  has 
been  given.  But  ten  talents  as  well  as  one  may 
be  wrapped  up:  one  as  well  as  ten  may  be  put  to 
profit.  It  is  monstrous  to  say  that  one  could  not 
be,  cannot  have  been,  used  properly.  It  was  for 
not  using  the  one  talent  he  had  that  the  unfaithful  J  \ 
servant  was  condemned  —  not  for  not  having  ten) 
to  use. 

Throughout  the  history  of  religion,  then,  two  facts 
have  been  implied,  which,  if  implicit  at  the  beginning, 
have  been  rendered  explicit  in  the  course  of  its 
history  or  evolution.  They  are,  first,  the  existence 
of  the  individual  as  a  member  of  society,  in  com- 
munion or  seeking  communion  with  God;  and, 
next,  that  while  the  individual  is  a  means  to  social 
ends,  society  is  also  a  means  of  which  the  individual 
is  the  end.  Neither  end  —  neither  that  of  society 
nor  that  of  the  individual  —  can  be  forwarded  at 


254  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

the  cost  of  the  other;  the  realisation  of  each  is  to 
be  attained  only  by  the  realisation  of  the  other. 
Two  consequences  then  follow  with  regard  to  evo- 
lution: first,  it  depends  on  us;  evolution  may  have 
helped  to  make  us,  but  we  are  helping  to  make  it. 
Next,  the  end  of  evolution  is  not  wholly  outside 
any  one  of  us,  but  in  part  is  realised  in  us,  or  may 
be,  if  we  so  will.  That  is  to  say,  the  true  end  may 
be  realised  by  every  one  of  us;  for  each  of  us,  as 
.being  himself  an  end,  is  an  object  of  care  to  God  — 
and'  not  merely  those  who  are  to  live  on  earth  at 
the  final  stage  of  evolution.  If  the  end  is  outside 
us,  it  is  in  love  of  neighbour ;  if  beyond  us,  it  is  in 
God's  love.  It  is  just  because  the  end  is  (or  may 
be)  both  within  us  and  without  us  that  we  are  bound 
up  with  our  fellow-man  and  God.  It  is  precisely 
because  we  are  individuals  that  we  are  not  the  be-all 
and  the  end-all  —  that  the  end  is  without  us.  And 
it  is  because  we  are  members  of  a  community,  that 
the  end  is  not  wholly  outside  us. 

In  his  Problems  of  Philosophy  (p.  163)  Hoffding 
says:  "The  test  of  the  perfection  of  a  human  society 
is:  to  what  degree  is  every  person  so  placed  and 
treated  that  he  is  not  only  a  mere  means,  but  also 
always  at  the  same  time  an  end?"  and  he  points 


CHRISTIANITY  255 

out  that  "this  is  Kant's  famous  dictum,  with  another 
motive  than  that  given  to  it  by  him."  But  if  it 
is  reasonable  to  apply  this  test  to  society,  regarded 
from  the  point  of  view  of  statics,  it  is  also  reasonable 
to  apply  it  to  society  regarded  dynamically.  If  it  is 
the  proper  test  for  ascertaining  what  degree  of  per- 
fection society  at  any  given  moment  has  attained, 
it  is  also  the  proper  test  for  ascertaining  what  ad- 
vance, if  any,  towards  perfection  has  been  made 
by  society  between  any  two  periods  of  its  growth, 
any  two  stages  in  its  evolution.  But  the  moment 
we  admit  the  possibility  of  applying  a  test  to  the 
process  of  evolution  and  of  discovering  to  what  end 
the  process  is  moving,  we  are  abandoning  science 
and  the  scientific  theory  of  evolution.  Science 
formally  refuses  to  consider  whether  there  be  any 
end  to  which  the  process  of  evolution  is  working: 
"end"  is  a  category  which  science  declines  to  apply 
to  its  subject-matter.  In  the  interests  of  knowledge 
it  declines  to  be  influenced  by  any  consideration  of 
what  the  end  aimed  at  by  evolution  may  be,  or 
whether  there  be  any  end  aimed  at  at  all.  It  simply 
notes  what  does  take  place,  what  is,  what  has  been, 
and  to  some  extent  what  may  be,  the  sequence  of 
events  —  not  their  object  or  purpose.  And  the 


256  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

science  of  religion,  being  a  science,  restricts  itself 
in  the  same  way.  As  therefore  science  declines  to 
use  the  category,  "end,"  progress  is  an  idea  impos- 
sible for  science  —  for  progress  is  movement  towards 
an  end,  the  realisation  of  a  purpose  and  object. 
And  science  declines  to  consider  whether  progress 
is  so  much  as  possible.  But,  so  far  as  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  science  of  religion  is  concerned,  it  is 
positive  (that  is  to  say,  it  is  mere  fact  of  observa- 
tion) that  in  religion  an  end  is  aimed  at,  for  man 
everywhere  seeks  God  and  communion  with  Him. 
What  the  science  of  religion  declines  to  do  is  to 
pronounce  or  even  to  consider  whether  that  end  is 
possible  or  not,  whether  it  is  in  any  degree  achieved 
or  not,  whether  progress  is  made  or  not. 

But  if  we  do  not,  as  science  does,  merely  constate 
the  fact  that  in  religion  an  end  is  aimed  at,  viz.  that 
communion  with  God  which  issues  in  doing  His  will 
from  love  of  Him  and  therefore  of  our  fellow-man; 
if  we  recognise  that  end  as  the  end  that  ought  to 
be  aimed  at,  —  then  our  attitude  towards  the  whole 
process  of  evolution  is  changed :  it  is  now  a  process 
with  an  end  —  and  that  end  the  same  for  the  indi- 
vidual and  for  society.  But  at  the  same  time  it  is 
no  longer  a  process  determined  by  mechanical 


CHRISTIANITY  257 

causes  worked  by  the  iron  hand  of  necessity  —  and 
therefore  it  is  no  longer  evolution  in  the  scientific 
sense;  it  is  no  longer  evolution  as  understood  by 
science.  It  is  now  a  process  in  which  there  may 
or  may  not  be  progress  made ;  and  in  which,  there- 
fore, it  is  necessary  to  have  a  test  of  progress  —  a 
test  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  indi- 
vidual is  not  merely  a  means,  but  an  end.  Whether 
progress  is  made  depends  in  part  on  whether  there 
is  the  will  in  man  to  move  towards  the  end  proposed ; 
and  that  will  is  not  uniformly  exercised,  as  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  deterioration  as  well  as  advance 
takes  place  —  regress  occurs  as  well  as  progress ; 
whole  nations,  and  those  not  small  ones,  may  be 
arrested  in  their  religious  development.  If  we  look 
with  the  eye  of  the  missionary  over  the  globe,  every- 
where we  see  arrested  development,  imperfect 
communion  with  God.  It  may  be  that  in  such  cases 
of  imperfect  communion  there  is  an  unconscious 
or  hardly  conscious  recognition  that  the  form  of 
religion  there  and  then  prevalent  does  not  suffice 
to  afford  the  communion  desired.  Or,  worse  still, 
and  much  more  general,  there  is  the  belief  that  such 
communion  as  does  exist  is  all  that  can  exist  —  that 
advance  and  improvement  are  impossible.  From 


258  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

this  state  it  has  been  the  work  of  the  religious  spirit 
to  wake  us,  to  reveal  to  us  God's  will,  to  make  us 
understand  that  it  is  within  us,  and  that  it  may, 
x    \    if  we  will,  work  within  us.     It  is  as  such  a  revela- 
tion of  the  will  of  God  and  the  love  of  God,  and  as 
the  manifestation  of  the  personality  of  God,  that 
^  f  our  Lord  appeared  on  earth. 

That  appearance  as  a  historic  fact  must  take  its 
place  in  the  order  of  historic  events,  and  must  stand 
in  relation  to  what  preceded  and  to  what  followed 
and  is  yet  to  follow.  In  relation  to  what  preceded, 
Christianity  claims  "to  be  the  fulfilment  of  all  that 
is  true  in  previous  religion"  (Illingworth,  Person- 
ality: Human  and  Divine,  p.  75).  The  making 
of  that  claim  assumes  that  there  was  some  truth  in 
previous  religion,  that  so  far  as  previous  forms  were 
religious,  they  were  true  —  a  fact  that  must  con- 
stantly be  borne  in  mind  by  the  missionary.  The 
i truth  and  the  good  inherent  in  all  forms  of  religion 
is  that,  in  all,  man  seeks  after  God.  The  finality 
of  Christianity  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  reveals  the 
God  for  whom  man  seeks.  What  was  true  in  other 
religions  was  the  belief  in  the  possibility  of  com- 
munion with  God,  and  the  belief  that  only  as  a 
member  of  a  society  could  the  individual  man  attain 


CHRISTIANITY  259., 

to  that  communion.  What  is  offered  by  Christianity 
is  a  means  of  grace  whereby  that  communion  may 
be  attained  and  a  society  in  which  the  individual 
may  attain  it.  Christianity  offers  a  means  whereby 
the  end  aimed  at  by  all  religions  may  be  realised. 
Its  finality,  therefore,  does  not  consist  in  its  chrono- 
logical relation  to  other  religions.  It  is  not  final 
because,  or  in  the  sense  that,  it  supervened  in  the 
order  of  time  upon  previous  religions,  or  that  it 
fulfilled  only  their  truth.  Other  religions  have,  as 
a  matter  of  chronology,  followed  it,  and  yet  others 
may  follow  it  hereafter.  But  their  chronological 
order  is  irrelevant  to  the  question :  Which  of  them 
best  realises  the  end  at  which  religion,  in  all  its 
forms,  aims?  And  it  is  the  answer  to  that  question 
which  must  determine  the  finality  of  any  form  of 
religion.  No  one  would  consider  the  fact  that 
Mahommedanism  dates  some  centuries  after  Christ 
any  proof  of  its  superiority  to  Christianity.  And 
the  lapse  of  time,  however  much  greater,  would 
constitute  no  greater  proof. 

That  different  forms  of  religion  do  realise  the 
end  of  religion  in  different  degrees  is  a  point  on 
which  there  is  general  agreement.  Monotheism  is 
pronounced  higherthan  polytheism,  ethical  religions 


260  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

higher  than  non-ethical.  What  differentiates  Chris- 
tianity from  other  ethical  religions  and  from  other 
forms  of  monotheism,  is  that  in  them  religion  appears 
as  ancillary  to  morality,  and  imposes  penalties  and 
rewards  with  a  view  to  enforce  or  encourage  moral- 
ity. In  them,  at  their  highest,  the  love  of  man  is  for 
his  fellow-man,  and  usually  for  himself.  Chris- 
tianity alone  makes  love  of  God  to  be  the  true  basis 
and  the  only  end  of  society,  both  that  whereby  per- 
sonality exists  and  the  end  in  which  it  seeks  its 
realisation.  Therein  the  Christian  theory  of  society 
differs  from  all  others.  Not  merely  does  it  hold  that 
man  cannot  make  himself  better  without  making 
society  better,  that  development  of  personality 
cannot  be  effected  without  a  corresponding  develop- 
ment of  society.  But  it  holds  that  such  moral 
development  and  improvement  of  the  individual  and 
of  society  can  find  no  rational  basis  and  has  no 
rational  end,  save  in  the  love  of  God. 

In  another  way  the  Christian  theory  of  society 
-'differs  from  all  others.  Like  all  others  it  holds 
that  the  unifying  bond  of  every  society  is  found  in 
worship.  Unlike  others  it  recognises  that  the  indi- 
vidual is  restricted  by  existing  society,  even  where 
that  society  is  based  upon  a  common  worship.  The 


CHRISTIANITY  261 

adequate  realisation  of  the  potentialities  of  the  indi- 
vidual postulates  the  realisation  of  a  perfect  society, 
just  as  a  perfect  society  is  possible  only  provided 
that  the  potentialities  of  the  individual  are  realised 
to  the  full.  Such  perfection,  to  which  both  society 
and  the  individual  are  means,  is  neither  attained 
nor  possible  on  earth,  even  where  communion  with 
God  is  recognised  to  be  both  the  true  end  of  society 
and  the  individual,  and  the  only  means  by  which 
that  end  can  be  attained.  Still  less  is  such  per- 
fection a  possible  end,  if  morality  is  set  above  religion, 
and  the  love  of  man  be  substituted  for  the  love  of 
God.  In  that  case  the  life  of  the  individual  upon 
earth  is  pronounced  to  be  the  only  life  of  which  he 
is,  or  can  be,  conscious ;  and  the  end  to  which  he  is 
a  means  is  the  good  of  humanity  as  a  whole.  Now 
human  society,  from  the  beginning  of  its  evolution 
to  its  end,  may  be  regarded  as  a  whole,  just  as  the 
society  existing  at  any  given  moment  of  its  evolution 

may  be  regarded  as  a  whole.     But  if   we   are   to 

'.       ,      j 

consider  human  society  from  the  former  point  of 
view  and  to  see  in  it,  so  regarded,  the  end  to  which 
the  individual  is  a  means,  then  it  is  clear  that,  juntil 
perfection  is  attained  in  some  remote  and  very 
improbable  future,  the  individual  members  of  the 


262  COMPARATIVE   RELIGION 

human  race  will  have  laboured  and  not  earned  their 
reward,  will  have  worked  for  an  end  which  they 
have  not  attained,  and  for  an  end  which  when,  if 
ever,  it  is  attained,  society  as  a  whole  will  not  enjoy. 
Such  an  end  is  an  irrational  and  impossible  object 
of  pursuit.  Perfection,  if  it  is  to  be  attained  by  the 
individual  or  by  society,  is  not  to  be  attained  on 
earth,  nor  in  man's  communion  with  man.  Religion' 
from  its  outset  has  been  the  quest  of  man  for  God. 
It  has  been  the  quest  of  man,  whether  regarded  as 
an  individual  or  as  a  member  of  society.  But  if 
that  quest  is  to  be  realised,  it  is  not  to  be  realised 
either  by  society  or  the  individual,  regarded  as  having 
a  mere  earthly  existence.  A  new  conception  of  the 
real  nature  of  both  is  requisite.  Not  only  must  the 
individual  be  regarded  as  continuing  to  exist  after 
death,  but  the  society  of  which  he  is  truly  a  member 
must  be  regarded  as  one  which,  if  it  manifests  or 
begins  to  manifest  itself  on  this  earth,  requires  for 
its  realisation  —  that  is,  for  perfect  communion 
with  God  —  the  postulate  that  though  it  manifests 
itself  in  this  world,  it  is  realised  in  the  next.  This 
new  conception  of  the  real  nature  of  society  and  the 
individual,  involving  belief  in  the  communion  of 
the  saints,  and  in  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  as  that 


CHRISTIANITY  263 

which  may  be  in  each  individual,  and  therefore  must 
extend  beyond  each  and  include  all  whether  in  this 
world  or  the  next  —  this  conception  is  one  which 
Christianity  alone,  of  all  religions,  offers  to  the 
world. 

Religion  is  the  quest  of  man  for  God.  Man 
everywhere  has  been  in  search  of  God,  peradventure 
he  might  find  Him;  and  the  history  of  religion  is 
the  history  of  his  search.  But  the  moment  we  regard 
the  history  —  the  evolution  —  of  religion  as  a  search, 
we  abandon  the  mechanical  idea  of  evolution:  the 
cause  at  work  is  not  material  or  mechanical,  but 
final.  The  cause  is  no  longer  a  necessary  cause 
which  can  only  have  one  result  and  which,  when 
it  operates,  must  produce  that  result.  Progress  is 
no  longer  something  which  must  take  place,  which 
is  the  inevitable  result  of  antecedent  causes.  It 
is  something  which  may  or  may  not  take  place  and 
which  cannot  take  place  unless  effort  is  made.  In 
a  word,  it  is  dependent  in  part  upon  man's  will  — 
without  the  action  of  which  neither  search  can  be  / 
made  nor  progress  in  the  search.  But  though  in 
part  dependent  upon  man's  will,  progress  can  only_  _ 
be  made  so  far  as  man's  will  is  to  do  God's  will. 
And  that  is  not  always,  and  has  not  been  always, 


264  COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

man's  will.  Hence  evolution  has  not  always  been 
progress.  Nor  is  it  so  now.  There  have  been 
lapses  in  civilisation,  dark  ages,  periods  when  man's 
love  for  man  has  waned  pari  passu  with  the  waning 
of  his  love  for  God.  Such  lapses  there  may  be  yet 
again.  The  fall  of  man  may  be  greater,  in  the  spirit- 
ual sense,  than  it  ever  yet  has  been,  for  man's  will 
is  free.  But  God's  love  is  great,  and  our  faith  is  in 
it.  If  Christianity  should  cease  to  grow  where  it 
now  grows,  and  cease  to  spread  where  it  as  yet  is 
not,  there  would  be  the  greater  fall.  And  on  us 
would  rest  some,  at  least,  of  the  responsibility.  Chris- 
tianity cannot  be  stationary:  if  it  stands,  let  it 
beware ;  it  is  in  danger  of  falling.  Between  religions, 
as  well  as  other  organisations,  there  is  a  struggle 
for  existence.  In  that  struggle  we  have  to  fight 
—  for  a  religion  to  decline  to  fight  is  for  that  religion 
to  die.  The  missionary  is  not  engaged  in  a  work 
of  supererogation,  something  with  which  we  at  home 
have  no  concern.  We  speak  of  him  as  in  the  fore- 
front of  the  battle.  We  do  not  usually  or  constantly 
realise  that  it  is  our  battle  he  is  fighting  —  that  his 
defeat,  if  he  were  defeated,  would  be  the  beginning 
of  the  end  for  us;  that  on  his  success  our  fate  de- 
pends. The  metaphor  of  the  missionary  as  an  out- 


CHRISTIANITY  265 

post  sounds  rather  picturesque  when  heard  in  a  ser- 
mon, —  or  did  so  sound  the  first  time  it  was  used,  I 
suppose,  —  but  it  is  not  a  mere  picture;  it  is  the 
barest  truth.  The  extent  to  which  we  push  our  out- 
posts forward  is  the  measure  of  our  vitality,  of  how 
much  we  have  in  us  to  do  for  the  world.  Six  out  of 
seven  of  Christendom's  missionaries  come  from  the 
United  States  of  America.  Until  I  heard  that  from 
the  pulpit  of  Durham  Cathedral,  I  had  rather  a 
horror  of  big  things  and  a  certain  apprehension 
about  going  to  a  land  where  bigness,  rather  than  the 
golden  mean,  seemed  to  be  taken  as  the  standard  of 
merit.  But  from  that  sermon  I  learnt  something, 
viz.  not  only  that  there  are  big  things  to  be  done  in 
the  world,  but  that  America  does  them,  and  that 
America  does  more  of  them  than  she  talks  about. 


APPENDIX 

SINCE  the  chapter  on  Magic  was  written,  the 
publication  of  Wilhelm  Wundt's  Volker psychologic, 
Vol.  II,  Part  II,  has  led  me  to  believe  that  I  ought  to 
have  laid  more  stress  on  the  power  of  the  magician, 
which  I  mention  on  pages  74,  85,  86,  87,  88,  89,  and 
less  on  the  savage's  recognition  of  the  principle  that 
like  produces  like.  In  the  stage  of  human  evolution 
known  as  Animism,  every  event  which  calls  for  ex- 
planation is  explained  as  the  doing  of  some  person 
or  conscious  agent.  When  a  savage  falls  ill,  his 
sickness  is  regarded  as  the  work  of  some  ill-disposed 
person,  whose  power  cannot  be  doubted  —  for  it  is 
manifest  in  the  sickness  it  has  caused  —  and  whose 
power  is  as  mysterious  as  it  is  indubitable.  That 
power  is  what  a  savage  means  by  magic;  and  the 
persons  believed  to  possess  it  are  magicians.  It 
is  the  business  of  the  sick  savage's  friends  to  find 
out  who  is  causing  his  sickness.  Their  suspicion 
may  fall  on  any  one  whose  appearance  or  behaviour 
is  suspicious  or  mysterious;  and  the  person  sus- 

267 


268  APPENDIX 

pected  comes  to  be  regarded  as  a  witch  or  magician, 
from  the  very  fact  that  he  is  suspected.  Such  per- 
sons have  the  power  of  witchcraft  or  magic,  because 
they  are  believed  to  have  the  power:  possunt  quia 
posse  videntur.  Not  only  are  they  believed  to  possess 
the  power;  they  come  to  believe,  themselves,  that 
they  possess  it.  They  believe  that,  possessing  it, 
they  have  but  to  exercise  it.  The  Australian  ma- 
gician has  but  to  "point"  his  stick,  and,  in  the  belief 
both  of  himself  and  of  every  one  concerned,  the 
victim  will  fall.  All  over  the  world  the  witch  has 
but  to  stab  the  image  she  has  drawn  or  made,  and 
the  person  portrayed  will  feel  the  wound.  In  this 
proceeding,  the  image  is  like  the  person,  and  the 
blow  delivered  is  like  the  blow  which  the  victim  is  to 
feel.  It  is  open  to  us,  therefore,  to  say  that,  in  this 
typical  case  of  "imitative"  or  "mimetic"  magic, 
like  is  believed  to  produce  like.  And  on  pages  75-77, 
and  elsewhere,  above,  I  have  taken  that  position. 
But  I  would  now  add  two  qualifications.  The  first  is, 
as  already  intimated,  that,  though  stabbing  an 
effigy  is  like  stabbing  the  victim,  it  is  only  a  magician 
or  witch  that  has  the  power  thus  to  inflict  wounds, 
sickness,  or  death:  the  services  of  the  magician  or 
witch  are  employed  for  no  other  reason  than  that 


APPENDIX  269 

the  ordinary  person  has  not  the  power,  even  by  the 
aid  of  the  rite,  to  cause  the  effect.  The  second 
qualification  is  that,  whereas  we  distinguish  between 
the  categories  of  likeness  and  identity,  the  savage 
makes  but  little  distinction.  To  us  it  is  evident 
that  stabbing  the  image  is  only  like  stabbing  the 
victim;  but  to  the  believer  in  magic,  stabbing  the 
image  is  the  same  thing  as  stabbing  the  victim; 
and  in  his  belief,  as  the  waxen  image  melts,  so  the 
victim  withers  away. 

It  would,  therefore,  be  more  precise  and  more 
correct  to  say  (page  74,  above)  that  eating  tiger  to 
make  you  bold  points  rather  to  a  confusion,  in  the 
savage's  mind,  of  the  categories  of  likeness  and 
identity,  than  to  a  conscious  recognition  of  the 
principle  that  like  produces  like:  as  you  eat  tiger's 
flesh,  so  you  become  bold  with  the  tiger's  boldness. 
The  spirit  of  the  tiger  enters  you.  But  no  magic  is 
necessary  to  enable  you  to  make  the  meal :  any  one 
can  eat  tiger.  The  belief  that  so  the  tiger's  spirit 
will  enter  you  is  a  piece  of  Animism;  but  it  is  not 
therefore  a  piece  of  magic. 


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INDEX 


Acosta,  Father,  193. 
Agnostic,  4,  6. 
Agries,  143. 
Alfoors,  194. 
Algonquins,  143. 
All-father,  190. 
Ancestors,  162. 

Ancestor  worship,  52,  53;  may 
be  arrested  by  religion,  53,  54, 

55- 

Andaman  Islands,  169. 

Animal  sacrifice,  209;  animal 
meal,  178. 

Animals,  worshipped,  in. 

Animism,  204,  215,  216,  217;  and 
magic,  89,  90,  98;  and  fe- 
tichism,  116,  117,  118;  poly- 
theism, 131;  not  religion,  136. 

Anticipation,  of  nature,  73. 

Antinomy,  the,  of  religious  feel- 
ing, 174. 

Anzam,  170. 

Applied  science  of  religion,  2  ff . ; 
looks  to  the  future,  3;  is  used 
by  the  missionary  as  a  prac- 
tical man,  15,  16;  its  object, 
18,  21. 

Ashantee  Land,  153,  155. 

Atheist,  4,  6. 

Atman,  247. 

At-one-ment,  178. 

Attention,  9,  10. 

Australia,  183  ff. 

Australian  tribes,  religion  of,  27, 
28. 

Aztecs,  1 88,  190. 


Basutos,  181. 
Becoming,  214. 


Being,  is  in  process  of  evolution, 
214;  still  incomplete,  214. 

Belief,  and  desire,  39,  40;  in  im- 
mortality and  God,  31,  32; 
erroneous,  and  magic,  79;  in 
magic,  85;  religious,  137. 

Bhogaldai,  194. 

Billiards,  78. 

Blood,  and  rain,  161. 

Bones,  of  animals,  hung  up,  78. 

Boorah,  162  ff. 

Bosnian,  109  ff.,  112,  113. 

Bread,  prayer  for  daily,  181. 

Buddhism,  247  ff. ;  and  immor- 
tality, 36,  37,  61,  62,  63;  its 
fundamental  illogicality,  66;  its 
strength,  66. 

Euro,  194. 

Buzzard,  76. 

Byamee,  162  ff.,  191,  198. 

Cause,  and  conditions,  77,  85. 

Celebes,  194. 

Ceram,  181. 

Ceremonies,  for  rain,  161. 

Chain  of  existence,  65. 

Charms,  and  prayers,  150, 115, 152. 

Chattels,  241,  243. 

Cherokee  Indian,  50,  76,  77. 

Chicomecoatl,  193. 

Childhood,  98. 

China,  194,  197. 

Christianity,  239  ff.,  258,  259,  260; 
the  highest  form  of  religion,  1 5, 
1 8,  22,  23;  and  other  forms  of 
religion,  26,  27,  28,  35;  alone 
teaches  self-sacrifice  as  the  way 
to  life  eternal,  69 ;  and  sacrifice, 
209. 


275 


276 


INDEX 


Clouds,  153;  of  smoke  and  rain, 
161,  162. 

Communal  purposes,  and  magic, 
91. 

Communion,  175;  not  so  much 
an  intellectual  belief  as  an  ob- 
ject of  desire,  43,  44;  of  man 
with  God  the  basis  of  morality, 
62 ;  logically  incompatible  with 
Buddhism,  63;  involves  per- 
sonal existence,  67 ;  with  God, 
137;  sought  in  prayer,  172; 
and  sacrifice,  172;  in  Mexico, 
193;  maintained  by  sacra- 
mental eating,  195;  annually, 
196;  renewed,  198;  the  true 
end  of  sacrifice,  207,  208;  be- 
tween man  and  God,  249;  im- 
perfect, 257. 

Community,  254;  and  magic,  81, 
97;  and  its  God,  91. 

Community,  the,  and  fetiches, 
122;  and  its  gods,  135;  and 
prayer,  146,  147,  148,  166; 
and  the  individual,  218,  239. 

Comparative  method,  20,  21. 

Comparative  Philology,  20. 

Comparison,  method  of,  17;  im- 
plies similarity  in  the  religions 
compared,  1 9 ;  and  implies  dif- 
ference also,  20;  contrasted 
with  comparative  method,  21; 
deals  with  differences,  22. 

Comte,  213. 

Conciliation,  and  coercion,  of 
spirits,  121. 

Congregations,  170. 

Contagious  magic,  85. 

Continuation  theory,  55,  56. 

Corn,    eaten   sacramentally,    194, 

195- 

Corn-maiden,  195. 
Corn-mother,  195. 
Corn-spirit,  196,  199,  200. 
Cotton-mother,  194. 
Creator,  170. 


Creek  Indians,  194. 
Custom,    244;    protected  by  the 
god  of  the  community,  219. 

Dances,  162;   and  prayer,  153. 

Dead,  the,  38 ;  return,  47 ;  spirits 
of  the,  92. 

Death,  a  mistake  according  to  the 
primitive  view,  44,  45;  or  else 
due  to  magic,  45,  46,  80. 

Deer,  74. 

Degradation  of  religion,  24. 

Deification,  53. 

Deiphobus,  54. 

Delaware  prayer,  145. 

Departmental  deities,  190. 

Desacralisation,  186. 

Desire  for  immortality,  is  the 
origin  of  the  belief  in  immor- 
tality, 40,  41 ;  is  not  a  selfish 
desire,  42 ;  the  root  of  all  evils, 
66;  religious,  115,  116,  121; 
and  prayer,  142,  149;  and  the 
worship  of  the  gods,  135;  and 
religion,  158,  1 66;  of  the  com- 
munity, 163. 

Desire  of  all  nations,  115,  173. 

Dieri,  50,  161,  164. 

Difference,  implies  similarity,  27. 

Differences,  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count by  method  of  comparison, 
22;  their  value,  23,  24;  postu- 
lated by  science,  24. 

Differentiation  of  the  homogene- 
ous, 23,  24,  25. 

Domesticated  plants  and  animals, 
190. 

Dreams,  and  the  soul,  37;  their 
emotional  value,  42. 

Drought,  164. 

Dugongs,  164,  165. 

Dynamics,  of  society,  246,  255. 

East  Indies,  181. 
Eating  of  the  god,  193. 
Eating  tiger,  74,  89. 


INDEX 


277 


Ellis,  Colonel,  113,  120,  xai,  122. 

Emotional  element,  in  fetichism 
and  religion,  136. 

End,  the,  gives  value  to  what  we 
do,  13;  and  is  a  matter  of  will, 
13;  of  society,  251,  253;  a 
category  unknown  to  science, 

255- 

Ends,  anti-social,  81. 

Error,  25. 

Euahlayi,  48,  162,  191,  198. 

Evolution,  214;  of  religion,  6, 
239,  247,  253;  and  progress, 
9,  12,  24,  264;  theory  of,  23; 
and  the  history  of  religion,  172, 
173;  of  humanity,  239,  244, 
246;  law  of,  252;  end  of,  254, 
256. 

Faith,  137,  238;  the  conviction 
that  we  can  attain  our  ends,  14; 
shared  by  the  religious  man 
with  all  practical  men,  14,  15; 
exhibited  in  adopting  method 
of  comparison  in  religion,  17; 
in  Christianity,  18;  banishes 
fear  of  comparisons,  18,  19; 
in  the  communion  of  man  with 
God  manifests  itself  in  the 
desire  for  immortality,  68. 

Family,  and  society,  98. 

Famine,  205. 

Father,  98. 

Feeling,  religious,  137;  moral  and 
religious,  81. 

Fetich,  denned,  in,  112;  offer- 
ings made  to  it,  112;  not  merely 
an  "inanimate,"  113,  116;  but 
a  spirit,  1 1 6,  117;  possesses 
personality  and  will,  117;  aids 
in  the  accomplishment  of  desire, 
117,  119;  may  be  made,  120; 
is  feared,  120;  has  no  religious 
value,  120,  121;  distinct  from 
a  god,  122;  subservient  to  its 
owner,  122;  has  no  plurality  of 


worshippers,  122;  its  principal 
object  to  work  evil,  123;  serves 
its  owner  only,  127;  perma- 
nence of  its  worship,  129;  has 
no  specialised  function,  129, 
130;  is  prayed  to  and  talked 
with,  132;  worshipped  by  an 
individual,  134;  and  not  by  the 
community,  135,  170. 

Fetichism,  105  ff.,  215;  as  the 
lowest  form  of  religion,  106, 
107;  as  the  source  of  religious 
values,  107,  1 08;  and  magic, 
90;  and  religion,  114,  120,  136; 
the  law  of  its  evolution,  119, 
120;  condemned  by  public 
opinion,  122,  123;  offensive  to 
the  morality  of  the  native,  126; 
and  at  variance  with  his  re- 
ligion, 126,  127;  not  the  basis 
of  religion,  127;  and  polythe- 
ism, 128,  131,  132,  133;  and 
fear,  136. 

Finality  of  Christianity,  258,  259. 

First- fruit  ceremonials,  183,  184; 
and  the  gods,  185,  187;  an  act 
of  worship,  187,  188. 

First-fruits,  181. 

Flesh  of  the  divine  being,  196. 

Fly-totem,  165,  166. 

Folk-lore,  85. 

Food  supply,  205. 

Footprints,  74. 

Forms  of  religion,  19. 

Framin  women,  152, 153, 155, 156. 

Frazer,  J.  G.,  50,  76,  78,  79,  83, 
92,  94,  102,  153,  157,  158,  160, 
180,  192,  194-200,  202,  205. 

Fuegians,  169. 

Funerals,  and  prayer,  163. 

Future,  knowledge  of  the,  14,  15. 

Future  life,  its  relation  to  morality 
and  religion,  36,  37,  57. 

Future  punishments,  and  rewards, 
51,  61. 

Future  world,  52  ff. 


278 


INDEX 


Ghosts,  38,  42. 

Gift-theory  of  sacrifice,  206. 

God,  worshipped  by  community, 
91,  98;  a  supreme  being,  168; 
etymology  of  the  word,  133, 
134;  a  personal  power,  136, 
137;  correlative  to  a  com- 
munity, 137. 

Gods  and  worshippers,  53;  and 
fetichism,  no;  made  and 
broken,  no;  personal,  121; 
"departmental,"  129;  their 
personality,  130,  131;  and  the 
good  of  the  community,  123; 
and  fetiches,  124;  are  the 
powers  that  care  for  the  welfare 
of  the  community,  126,  172; 
and  spirits,  128;  "of  a  mo- 
ment," 128,  136;  their  proper 
names,  131;  worshipped  by  a 
community,  134;  and  the  de- 
sires of  their  worshippers,  134; 
not  evolved  from  fetiches,  135; 
promote  the  community's  good, 
J35»  i37»  167;  and  prayer,  140, 
147,  148;  and  morality,  169; 
of  a  community  identified  with 
the  community,  177;  as  ethical 
powers,  215;  punish  trans- 
gression, 220. 

Gold  Coast,  prayer,  143. 

Golden  Age,  25. 

Good,  the,  140;    and    the   gods, 

*37- 

Gotama,  64. 
Gott,  and  giessen,  134. 
Grace,  259. 
Gratitude,  181. 
Great  Spirit,  the,  143. 
Guardian  spirits,  in. 
Guinea,  197. 

Haddon,  Dr.,  83,  91,  100,  101, 
106,  107,  117,  118,  124,  129, 
130,  132,  133. 

Hades,  58. 


Hallucinations,  38. 

Happiness,  240. 

Hartford  Theological  Seminary, 
i,  22,  106. 

Harvest,  prayers  and  sacrifice, 
1 80  ff. 

Harvest  communion,  188,  189. 

Harvest  customs,  192,  198,  203. 

Harvest  supper,  195  ff.,  200;  its 
sacramental  character,  197. 

Health,  and  disease,  138. 

Heaven,  kingdom  of,  252,  262. 

Hebrew  prophets,  207,  209. 

Hebrews,  54. 

Hegel,  213. 

Hindoo  Koosh,  194. 

Historic  science,  has  the  historic 
order  for  its  object,  n;  but 
does  not  therefore  deny  that  its 
facts  may  have  value  other  than 
truth  value,  n. 

History,  of  art  and  literature,  8; 
of  religion,  253,  263. 

Ho  dirge,  47. 

Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  211,  214-216, 
222,  223,  226-229,  23°>  237- 

Hoffding,  H.,  44,  166,  173,  254; 
on  fetichism,  106,  114,  115,  121, 
124,  128-130, 133-137;  on  anti- 
nomy of  religious  feeling,  174; 
and  morality,  211,  214-216,  219, 
220,  237. 

Hollis,  Mr.,  143  ff- 

Homer,  16,  17. 

Homoeopathic  magic,  80,  85,  93. 

Homogeneous,  the,  23,  24. 

Howitt,  Mr.,  190. 

Hu,  huta,  134. 

Humanitarianism,  214,  215,  236, 
244,  246,  247;  and  morality, 
221. 

rlumanity,  213;  its  evolution,  244. 

rlusband,  98. 

ideals,  a  matter  of  the  will,  13. 
Idols,  193. 


INDEX 


279 


Illingworth,  J.  R.,  258. 

Illusion,  64,  248. 

Images,  of  dough,  193,  196. 

Imitative  magic,  157. 

Immortality,  34  ff. 

Incorporation,  178. 

Individual,  and  the  community, 
218,  239;  cannot  exist  save  in 
society,  225;  both  a  means  and 
an  end  for  society,  240  ff.,  246, 
247;  existence  of,  248;  inter- 
ests of,  250,  251 ;  end  of,  253. 

Individuality,  not  destroyed  but 
strengthened  by  uprooting  self- 
ish desires,  67. 

Indo-China,  181,  194. 

Indo-European  languages,  20. 

Infancy,  helpless,  98. 

Initiation  ceremonies,  190,  191; 
admit  to  the  worship  of  the 
gods,  192 ;  important  for  theory 
of  sacrifice,  192. 

Interests,  of  the  community,  250; 
and  the  individual,  250. 

Intoning,  of  prayer,  147. 

Israel,  59. 

Jaundice,  89. 
Jews,  53,  54. 
Judgments,  of  value,  115. 
Justice,  public,  223,  224  ff. 

Kaitish  rites,  164,  165. 

Kangaroo  totem,  197. 

Kant,  255. 

Karma,  64,  65. 

Kei  Islands,  156. 

Kern  Baby,  195. 

Khonds   of   Orissa,   and   prayer, 

139,  167,  171. 
Killing  of  the  god,  197. 
Kingsley,  Miss,  48,  49,  116. 

Lake  Nyassa,  146. 

Lake  Superior,  143. 

Lang,  Andrew,  129, 168,  169, 170. 


U  Annie  Sociologique,  60. 

Like  produces  like,  72,  73,  74,  76, 

79,  80,  84,  85,  86,  89,  98,  100, 

160,  189. 
Litanies,  163. 
Love  of  neighbours,  254. 

MacCullough,  J.  A.,  47. 

McTaggart,  Dr.,  49,  50. 

Magic,  32,  70  ff . ;  and  murder,  45, 
47;  a  colourable  imitation  of 
science,  71 ;  a  spurious  sys- 
tem, 71,  72;  fraudulent,  75,  76; 
origin  of  belief  in,  79;  regarded 
with  disapproval,  79;  sympa- 
thetic or  homoeopathic,  80; 
offensive  to  the  god  of  the 
community,  81 ;  not  prior  to 
religion,  97 ;  condemned  when 
inconsistent  with  the  public 
good,  97;  and  anti-social  pur- 
poses, 98;  decline  of,  100;  and 
the  impossible,  101 ;  private 
and  public,  83;  nefarious,  83; 
beneficent,  87,  88;  does  not 
imply  spirits,  89;  and  religion, 
92  ff.;  fundamentally  different, 
95,  158,  1 60;  mimics  science 
and  religion,  103;  and  the 
degradation  of  religion,  150, 
151,  152;  and  prayer,  153,  154; 
priority  of,  to  religion,  154,  157; 
and  sacramental  eating,  199— 
204.  See  Appendix. 

Magician,  his  personality,  87. 

Mahommedanism,  259. 

Maize-mother,  190,  193,  194,  195, 
196. 

Maker,  the,  168. 

Manganja,  146,  160. 

Mara  tribe,  164. 

Marett,  R.  R.,  151. 

Marriage  law,  222,  227. 

Masai,  and  prayer,  143,  144,  145, 
153-156,  162. 

Master  of  Life,  143. 


280 


INDEX 


Mauss,  M.,  60. 

Maya,  64. 

Medical  advice,  76. 

Mexico,  193,  194,  199,  200. 

Mimetic  magic,  85. 

Minahassa,  194. 

Mind  of  Humanity,  213. 

Missionary,  6,  140,  210,  211,  257, 
265;  interested  in  the  value 
rather  than  the  chronological 
order  of  religions,  12;  being 
practical,  uses  applied  science, 
15 ;  and  method  of  comparison, 
1 7 ;  and  notes  resemblances,  2  2  ; 
requires  scientific  knowledge  of 
the  material  he  has  to  work  on, 
34;  may  use  as  a  lever  the 
belief  in  man's  communion  with 
spirits,  69;  and  magic,  102,  103, 
104;  and  fetichism,  105;  and 
heathen  prayer,  138,  173. 

Momentary  gods,  128,  136. 

Morality,  81,  83,  84,  95,  211  ff., 
260,  261 ;  and  communion  with 
God,  62;  and  the  mysteries, 
191;  and  prayer,  148. 

Moral  transgression,  and  sin,  221. 

Mosquito-totem,  166. 

Mura-muras,  162. 

Mysteries,  the  Greek,  58,  62 ;  and 
prayer,  180. 

Names,  and,  gods,  121. 

Names,  of  gods,  121,  131,  132;  of 

men,  132;  and  personality,  133. 
Nassau,  Dr.,  116,  168,  170. 
Natchez  Indians,  194. 
Natural  law,  72. 
Nature,  uniformity  of,  14,  15. 
Nefarious  magic,  83-87,  95. 
Neilgherry  Hills,  194. 
New  Caledonia,  92,  153,  154,  155, 

156,  162. 

New  Hebrides,  181. 
New  South  Wales,  162. 
Nias,  181. 


Niger,  181. 

Nirvana,  247. 

North  American  Indians,  in. 

Nyankupon,  169. 

Offerings,  178;  and  their  object, 
180;  made  to  fetiches,  112,  122. 

Old  Testament,  54. 

Ol-kora,  154,  162. 

Onitsha,  181. 

Order  of  value,  7;  distinct  from 
chronological  order,  7,  9,  15, 
16;  historic,  8. 

Origin,  and  validity,  38,  39^ 

Osages,  143. 

Parker,  Mrs.  L.,  162  ff.,  191. 

Perception,  9. 

Personality,  of  magician,  87;    of 

gods  and  fetiches,  130,  131,  132; 

of  God,  258 ;  and  proper  names, 

*33- 

Personification,  136. 

Peru,  193,  194,  198. 

Pestilence,  205. 

Pinkerton,  109. 

Plato,  206,  207,  209. 

Political  economy,  5,  6. 

Political  philosophy,  241. 

Polytheism  and  fetichism,  128, 
130,  131,  132,  133. 

Pondos,  194. 

Power,  personal,  87,  88,  100. 

Prayer,  92,  93,  94,  138  ff. ;  among 
the  heathen,  138;  to  fetiches, 
127;  and  desire,  142;  and 
personal  advantage,  144;  and 
the  community,  146;  of  indi- 
viduals, 147;  unethical,  148, 
149;  and  magic,  154;  and 
spells,  .155,  157,  1 60;  and 
famine,  158;  for  rain,  160;  the 
expression  of  the  heart's  desire, 
1 60;  never  unknown  to  man, 
1 60,  161;  in  exceptional  dis- 
tress, 182;  of  thanksgiving, 


INDEX 


28l 


182;  occasional  and  recurring, 
179  ff. ;  and  communion,  180; 
its  purpose,  175;  and  external 
rites,  176;  implies  sacrifice, 
176;  not  always  reported  by 
observers,  177;  and  sacrifice 
go  together,  169;  no  worship 
without,  170;  of  Socrates,  171; 
and  sacrifice,  172;  Our  Lord's, 
172,  173;  practical,  167;  the 
root  of  religion,  167,  168;  and 
its  objects,  163;  a  mother's 
prayer,  163;  "singing,"  164; 
and  charms,  150,  165;  at  seed 
time,  205. 

Prayer-mill,  150. 

Priests,  91,  193;  and  gods,  121; 
and  fetiches,  122. 

Primitive  man,  believes  in  immor- 
tality, 37. 

Private  property,  5,  6. 

Progress,  9,  246,  256,  257,  263; 
and  evolution,  24. 

Protective  colouring,  70,  103. 

Psalmist,  54. 

Puluga,  169. 

Pure  science  of  religion,  is  a  his- 
toric science,  2;  its  facts  may 
be  used  for  different  and  con- 
tradictory purposes,  4. 

Rain,  prayed  for,  146,  160,  161. 

Rain-clouds,  154,  156,  161,  162. 

Rain-god,  91,  92. 

Rain-making,  84,  87,  88,  91,  161, 
164. 

Rebirth,  48,  49,  50. 

Regress,  246,  257. 

Reincarnation,  59;  in  animal 
form,  50,  51,  52;  in  new-born 
children,  48-50 ;  in  namesakes, 
50;  its  relation  to  morality  and 
religion,  61. 

Religion,  is  a  fact,  5;  never  un- 
known to  man,  1 60,  161;  essen- 
tially practical,  160,  175;  its 


evolution,  239;  as  a  survival  of 
barbarism,  24;  lowest  forms  to 
be  studied  first,  26,  27;  is  a 
yearning  after  and  search  for 
God,  28,  115,  136;  a  bond  of 
community  from  the  first,  43, 
59,  176;  implies  gods  and  their 
worship,  121,  122,  177,  217; 
implies  rites  and  prayers,  176; 
"under  the  guise  of  desire,"  44, 
115,  149,  158,  166,  173;  but  it 
is  the  desire  of  the  community, 
44;  and  morality,  37,  81,  83, 
84,211,215;  and  animism,  136; 
and  fetichism,  106—109,  IJS» 
131,  132,  136;  and  magic,  70, 
71,  72,  92-95,  96,  97,  98,  101, 
150,  151,  152,  154;  mechanical, 
150;  applied  science  of,  105; 
and  its  value,  109. 

Religious  values,  9,  16. 

Resemblances,  not  more  impor- 
tant than  differences,  for  the 
method  of  comparison,  22 ;  their 
value,  23,  24. 

Resentment  and  justice,  224. 

Responsibility,  collective,  227, 
228,  234. 

Revelation,  172,  255;  and  evolu- 
tion, 173. 

Revenge  and  justice,  229. 

Rheumatism,  76. 

Rhys  Davids,  64. 

Saa,  1 80. 

Sacrament,  in  Central  Australia, 
197,  200. 

Sacramental  meals,  183  ff.,  197, 
199,  200,  201,  203. 

Sacrifice,  92,  93,  94,  175  ff.;  to 
fetiches,  1 1 3 ;  and  worship,  137, 
177;  and  prayer,  172,  177;  and 
the  gift  theory,  206;  and  com- 
munion, 207,  208;  its  ultimate 
form,  209,  210;  and  the  ety- 
mology of  "god,"  133  ff.,  137. 


282 


INDEX 


Saffron,  89. 

Science,  has  truth,  not  assignment 
of  value,  for  its  object,  10,  n, 
1 08;  and  history,  108;  does 
not  deal  with  ends,  255;  and 
evolution,  257;  and  magic,  70, 
71,  72,  101;  of  the  savage,  159, 
189. 

Science  of  religion,  256;  pure  and 
applied,  2  ff.;  supposed  to  be 
incompatible  with  religious  be- 
lief, 4;  really  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  truth  or  value  of  re- 
ligion, 5,  10 ;  and  prayer, 
140,  141 ;  and  the  missionary, 
105. 

Sea  Dyaks,  228. 

Search  for  God,  the,  28,  29,  30,  34, 
35,  252,  258,  262. 

Seed  time,  188,  205. 

Self -realising  spirit,  213,  214. 

Seminole  Indians,  194. 

Shakespeare,  16,  17. 

Sheol,  54,  58. 

Similarity,  between  higher  and 
lower  forms  of  religion,  2  7 ;  the 
basis  for  the  missionary's  work, 
28. 

"Singing,"  164,  165. 

Slavery,  241,  243. 

"Smelling  out,"  84. 

Social  purpose,  and  magic,  91. 

Society,  a  means,  253;  as  an  end, 
261 ;  perfection  of,  254,  261 ; 
and  the  family,  98. 

Society  Islands,  181. 

Solidarity,  212,213,251;  religious, 
220. 

Solomon  Islands,  180. 

Soul,  the,  37;  separable  from  the 
body,  37;  its  continued  exist- 
ence, 38. 

Spells,  and  prayers,  150,  151,  152, 
*S3>  J55.  157.  160,  164. 

Spencer  and  Gillen,  45,  46,  164, 
197. 


Spinning,  78,  79. 

Spirits,  162,  170;  not  essential  to 
magic,  89,  90,  91  ;  and  fetiches, 
1  1  8,  119;  of  fetichism  and  gods 
of  polytheism,  128;  guardian, 
1  1  1  ;  "  momentary,  "  and  gods, 
135;  and  prayer,  166;  and 
morality,  215,  217,  219;  not 
worshipped,  216. 

Spring  customs,  192,  198,  203. 

Squirrel,  76,  78. 

State,  the,  and  justice,  224. 

St.  John,  Mr.,  228. 

Stones,  92,  93,  94. 

Struggle  for  existence,  264. 

Suhntan,  122,  123,  126,  136. 

Sun,  153,  157. 

Superstition,  150. 

Sympathetic  magic,   80,   85,   93, 


Taboo,  1  86  ff.,  222,  229,  231-234, 

250. 

Talents,  253. 
Tana,  181. 
Tanner,  John,  143. 
Tari,  181,  183. 
Taro,  92,  93,  94. 
Temples,  178. 
Test,   of    perfection    in    society, 

255- 
Thanks,  do  not  need  words,  181, 

185. 

Thank-offerings,  181. 
Thomsen,  Professor,  134. 
Tibetan  Buddhists,  150. 
Tiger,  74,  89. 
Tjumba,  181. 
Tonga,  181. 
Totems,  51,  165,  166,  197,  203; 

eating  of,  186. 
Trade  wind,  101. 
Transmigration,  51,  61,  119,  120; 

of  character,  64. 
Truth,  25;   and  value,  10. 
Tupinambas,  56,  58. 


INDEX 


283 


Tylor,  Professor,  37,  47,  56,  112, 
141-144, 147, 148, 150, 161, 166. 

Unalits,  59,  60. 

Uncle  John,  knows  his  own  pipe, 

49,  50- 
Uniformity  of  nature,  14;   matter 

of  faith,  not  of  knowledge,  15. 
Unselfishness,  developes  and  does 

not  weaken  individuality,  67. 
Usener,  Professor,  128,  131,  133. 
Utilitarianism,  240,  242. 

Value,  7;  literary  and  artistic,  8, 
9;  religious,  8,  9,  10,  107,  108, 
109;  carries  a  reference  to  the 
future,  12;  relative  to  a  pur- 
pose or  end,  13,15;  of  litera- 
ture and  art,  felt,  not  proved,  1 6, 
17;  of  fetichism,  114,  115,  120; 
of  fetichism  and  religion  for 
society,  125;  religious,  and 
fetichism,  127. 

Virgil,  54. 

West  Africa,  152,  153. 
Westermarck,  E.,  224,  225,  228, 
235- 


Whistling,  to  produce  a  wind,  73, 

74,  75- 

Will,  the,  13. 

Will  to  injure,  81. 

Will  to  live,  the,  41 ;  involves  the 
desire  for  immortality,  41 ;  de- 
nounced by  Buddhism,  66. 

Wind,  100,  1 01. 

Wisdom,  collective,  of  man,  237. 

Witch,  and  witch-doctor,  84. 

Witchcraft,  222,  227. 

Wives,  of  hunters  and  warriors,  78. 

Wohkonda,  143. 

Worship,  121,  122,  177,  1 80,  260; 
and  the  etymology  of  "god," 
133  ff.,  137;  of  gods  and  of 
fetiches,  123,  134,  135;  of  the 
community,  given  to  the  pow- 
ers that  protect  it,  126;  may 
break  up,  170. 

Xenophon,  171. 
Xilonen,  190. 

Yams,  93,  143,  180,  181. 
Yebu,  147- 

Zulus,  194. 


BY   FRANK    BYRON   JEVONS 

Principal  of  Bishop  Hatfield's  Hall,  Durham 

An  Introduction  to  the 
History  of  Religion 

Third  Edition.     Cloth,  8vo,  415  pages,  $2.50  net 

by  mail,  $2.62 

The  history  of  early  religion  is  here  investigated  on  the  principles 
and  methods  of  anthropology;  it  was  intended  primarily  for  stu- 
dents who  require  an  introduction  to  the  history  of  religion,  but 
has  proved  of  interest  to  students  of  folklore,  and  to  the  wider 
circle  of  general  readers.  It  accomplishes  what  no  other  work  in 
the  same  field  does,  in  the  direction  of  summarizing  the  results  of 
recent  anthropology,  estimating  their  bearing  upon  religious  prob- 
lems, and  weaving  the  whole  into  a  connected  history  of  early 
religion. 

BY    HUTTON   WEBSTER 

Professor  of  Sociology  and  Anthropology,  University  of  Nebraska 

Primitive 
Secret  Societies 

Cloth,  gilt  top,  8vo,  $2.00  net;  by  mail,  $2.12 

Professor  Webster  has  grouped  here,  in  a  condensed  and  classified 
form,  a  great  amount  of  information,  gathered  by  travellers  and 
ethnologists,  of  the  initiation  ceremonies  and  secret  societies 
found  among  savage  and  barbarous  communities  in  all  parts  of 
the  world;  and  attempts  to  arrive  at  the  significance  of  the  facts. 
Particular  attention  is  given  to  the  almost  universal,  but  widely 
varying  "  puberty  institution,"  and  to  the  part  secret  societies  play 
in  the  tribal  life  and  government.  Magical  fraternities  also  re- 
ceive much  patient  attention.  The  prevalence  and  variety  of 
mystic  rites,  ceremonials,  and  solidarities,  among  the  primitive 
peoples  of  this  continent  receive  particular  attention.  The  book 
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and  it  also  will  be  of  particular  interest  to  members  of  the  Masonic 
and  other  ancient  secret  orders. 


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Studies  of  Religion 

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The  Soul  of  a  People 

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The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion 

By  ANDREW  MARTIN  FAIRBAIRN,  Principal  of  Mansfield 
College,  Oxford,  author  of  "Christ  in  Modern  Theology," 
"Studies  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion." 

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ligion through  nature  and  man,  conceiving  of  it  as  a  joint  product 
of  the  mind  within  man  and  of  the  nature  around  him.  .  .  .  The 
second  part  of  the  author's  design  is  to  construe  Christianity 
through  religion,  to  explain  its  origin  and  nature,  and  indicate  its 
distinctive  ideas.  .  .  .  This  is  a  book,  not  simply  to  be  read  for  the 
interest  of  its  topic,  but  to  be  studied  with  care  and  enjoyed  as  a 
rare  contribution  to  the  philosophy  of  religion  .  .  .;  the  work 
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problems  in  present  day  thought  have  arrived.  And  so  he  discerns 
keenly  the  points  where  the  fundamental  questions  of  philosophy, 
science,  and  religion  meet."  —  Chicago  Tribune. 

The  Philosophical  Basis  of  Religion 

By  JOHN  WATSON,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Moral  Phi- 
losophy in  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  Canada. 

Cloth,  8vo,  xxvi  +  jSj  pages,  $3.00  net 

"These  lectures,  six  of  which  were  recently  given  in  Brooklyn, 
and  eight  others  which  are  critical  studies  in  the  historical  evo- 
lution of  religious  thought,  eminently  deserve  the  attention  of 
those  who  agree  with  their  author  that  'nothing  short  of  a  com- 
plete revision  of  theological  ideas  can  bring  permanent  satisfac- 
tion to  our  highly  reflective  age.' "  —  The  Outlook. 


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